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CRISTO RAUL.ORG |
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THE FRANKSFROM THEIR
FIRST APPEARANCE IN HISTORY TO THE
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THE FRANKS BEFORE CLOVIS
Tacitus, in the de Moribus Germanorum,
tells us that the Germans claimed to be descended from a common ancestor, Mannus, son of the earth-born god Tuisco. Mannus, according to the legend, had three sons, from
whom sprang three groups of tribes: the Istaevones,
who dwelt along the banks of the Rhine; the Ingaevones,
whose seat was on the shores of the two seas, the Oceanus Germanicus (North
Sea) and the Mare Suevicum (the Baltic), and in the Cimbric peninsula between; and, lastly, more to the east
and south, on the banks of the Elbe and the Danube, the Herminones.
After indicating this general division, Tacitus, in the latter part of his
work, enumerates about forty tribes, whose customs presented, no doubt, a
strong general resemblance, but whose institutions and organization showed
differences of a sufficiently marked character.
When we pass from the first century to the fifth, we find that the names of
the Germanic peoples given by Tacitus have completely disappeared. Not only is
there no mention of Istaevones, Ingaevones,
and Herminones, but there is no trace of individual
tribes such as the Chatti, Chauci, and Cherusci; their names are wholly unknown to the writers of
the fourth and fifth centuries. In their place we find these writers using
other designations: they speak of Franks, Saxons, Alemans. The writers of the
Merovingian period not unnaturally supposed that these were the names of new
peoples, who had invaded Germany and made good their footing there in the
interval. This hypothesis found favour especially
with regard to the Franks. As early as Gregory of Tours, we find mention of a
tradition according to which the Franks had come from Pannonia, had first
established themselves on the right bank of the Rhine, and had subsequently
crossed the river. In the chronicler known under the name of Fredegar the Franks are represented as descended from the
Trojans. “Their first king was Priam; afterwards they had a king named Friga; later, they divided into two parts, one of which
migrated into Macedonia and received the name of Macedonians. Those who
remained were driven out of Phrygia and wandered about, with their wives and
children, for many years. They chose for themselves a king named Francion, and from him took the name of Franks. Francion made war upon many peoples, and after devastating
Asia finally passed over into Europe, and established himself between the
Rhine, the Danube and the sea”. The writer of the Liber Historiae combines the statements of Gregory of Tours and of the pseudo-Fredegar, and, with a fine disregard of chronology, relates
that, after the fall of Troy, one part of the Trojan people, under Priam and
Antenor, came by way of the Black Sea to the mouth of the Danube, sailed up the
river to Pannonia, and founded a city called Sicambria. The Trojans, so this
anonymous writer continues, were defeated by the Emperor Valentinian, who laid
them under tribute and named them Franks, that is wild men (feros),
because of their boldness and hardness of heart. After a time the Franks slew
the Roman officials whose duty it was to demand the tribute from them, and, on
the death of Priam, they quitted Sicambria, and came to the neighborhood of the
Rhine. There they chose themselves a king named Pharamond,
son of Marcomir. This naïf legend, half-popular,
half-learned, was accepted as fact throughout the Middle Ages. From it alone
comes the name of Pharamond, which in most histories
heads the list of the kings of France. In reality, there is nothing to prove
that the Franks, any more than the Saxons or the Alemans, were races who came
in from without, driven into Germany by an invasion of their own territory.
Some modern scholars have thought that the origin of the Franks, and of
other races who make their appearance between the third century and the fifth,
might be traced to a curious custom of the Germanic tribes. The nobles, whom
Tacitus calls principes, attached to
themselves a certain number of comrades, comites,
whom they bound to fealty by a solemn oath. At the head of these followers they
made pillaging expeditions, and levied war upon the neighboring peoples,
without however involving the community to which they belonged. The comes was
ready to die for his chief; to desert him would have been an infamy. The chief,
on his part, protected his follower, and gave him a war-horse, spear, etc. as
the reward of his loyalty. Thus there were formed, outside the regular State,
bands of warriors united together by the closest ties. These bands, so it is
said, soon formed, in the interior of Germany, what were virtually new States,
and the former princeps simply took the title of king. Such, according to the
theory, was the origin of the Franks, the Alemans, and the Saxons. But this
theory, however ingenious, cannot be accepted. The bands were formed exclusively
of young men of an age to bear arms; among the Franks we find from the first
old men, women, and children. The bands were organized solely for war; whereas
the most ancient laws of the Franks have much to say about the ownership of
land, and about crimes against property; they represent the Franks as an
organized nation with regular institutions.
The Franks, then, did not come into Germany from without; and it would be
rash to seek their origin in the custom of forming bands. That being so, only
one hypothesis remains open. From the second century to the fourth the Germans
lived in a continual state of unrest. The different communities ceaselessly
made war on one another and destroyed one another. Civil war also devastated
many of them. The ancient communities were thus broken up, and from their
remains were formed new communities which received new names. Thus is to be
explained why it is that the nomenclature of the Germanic peoples in the fifth
century differs so markedly from that which Tacitus has recorded. But neighboring
tribes presented, despite their constant antagonisms, considerable
resemblances. They had a common dialect and similar habits and customs. They
sometimes made temporary alliances, though holding themselves free to quarrel
again before long and make war on one another with the utmost ferocity. In
time, groups of these tribes came to be called by generic names, and this is
doubtless the character of the names Franks, Alemans, and Saxons. These names
were not applied, in the fourth and fifth centuries, to a single tribe, but to
a group of neighboring tribes who presented, along with real differences,
certain common characteristics.
It appears that the peoples who lived along the right bank of the Rhine, to
the north of the Main, received the name of Franks; those who had established
themselves between the Ems and the Elbe, that of Saxons (Ptolemy mentions the Saxones as inhabitants of the Cimbric peninsula, and perhaps the name of this petty tribe had passed to the whole
group); while those whose territory lay to the south of the Main and who at
some time or other had overflowed into the agri decumates (the present Baden) were called
Alemans. It is possible that, after all, we should see in these three peoples,
as Waitz has suggested, the Istaevones, Ingaevones, and Herminones of
Tacitus.
But it must be understood that between the numerous tribes known under each
of the general names of Franks, Saxons, and Alemans there was no common bond.
They did not constitute a single State but groups of States without federal
connection or common organization. Sometimes two, three, even a considerable
number of tribes, might join together to prosecute a war in common, but when
the war was over the link snapped and the tribes fell asunder again.
Franks and Romans. 240-392
Documentary evidence enables us to trace how the generic name Franci came to be given to certain tribes between the Main
and the North Sea, for we find these tribes designated now by the ancient name
which was known to Tacitus and again by the later name. In Peutinger’s chart we find Chamavi qui et Franci and there is no doubt that we should read qui et Franci.
The Chamavi inhabited the country between the Yssel and the Ems; later on, we find them a little further
south, on the banks of the Rhine in Hamaland, and
their laws were collected in the ninth century in the document known as the Lex
Francorum Chamavorum. Along with the Chamavi we may reckon among the Franks the Attuarii or Chattuarii. We read
in Ammianus Marcellinus (xx. 10) Rheno transmisso, regionem pervasit (Julian in AD 360) Francorum quos Atthuarios vocant. Later, the pagus Attuariorum will correspond to the country of Emmerich, of Cleves, and of Xanten. We may
note that in the Middle Ages there was to be found in Burgundy, in the neighborhood
of Dijon, a pagus Attuariorum,
and it is very probable that a portion of this tribe settled at this spot in
the course of the fifth century. The Bructeri, the Ampsivarii, and the Chatti were,
like the Chamavi, reckoned as Franks. They are
mentioned as such in a well-known passage of Sulpicius Alexander which is cited
by Gregory of Tours (Historia Francorum, II. 9). Arbogast, a barbarian general
in the service of Rome, desires to take vengeance on the Franks and their
chiefs—subreguli—Sunno and Marcomir.
It is this Marcomir, chief of the Ampsivarii and Chatti, whom the author of the Liber Historiae makes the father of Pharamond,
though he has nothing whatever to do with the Salian Franks.
Thus it is evident that the name Franks was given to a group of tribes, not
to a single tribe. The earliest historical mention of the name may be that in Peutinger's chart, supposing, at least, that the words et Pranci are not a later interpolation. The earliest mention
in a literary source is in the Vita Aureliani of Vopiscus, cap. 7. In the year 240, Aurelian, who was then
only a military tribune, immediately after defeating the Franks in the neighborhood
of Mainz, was marching against the Persians, and his soldiers as they marched
chanted this refrain:
Mille Sarmatas, mille Francos semel et semel occidimus;
Mille Persas quaerimus.
It would be in any case impossible to follow the history of all these
Frankish tribes for want of evidence, but even if their history was known it
would be of quite secondary interest, for it would have only a remote
connection with the history of France. Offshoots from these various tribes no
doubt established themselves sporadically here and there in ancient Gaul, as in
the case of the Attuarii. It was not however by the
Franks as a whole, but by a single tribe, the Salian Franks, that Gaul was to
be conquered; it was their king who was destined to be the ruler of this noble
territory. It is therefore to the Salian Franks that we must devote our
attention.
The Salian Franks. 358-400
The Salian Franks are mentioned for the first time in AD 358. In that year
Julian, as yet only a Caesar, marched against them. What is the origin of the
name? It was long customary to derive it from the river Yssel (Isala), or from Saalland to the south of the Zuiderzee; but it seems much more probable that the name
comes from sal (the salt sea). The Salian Franks at
first lived by the shores of the North Sea, and were known by this name in
contradistinction to the Ripuarian Franks, who lived on the banks of the Rhine.
All their oldest legends speak of the sea, and the name of one of their
earliest kings, Merovech, signifies sea-born.
From the shores of the North Sea the Salian Franks had advanced little by
little towards the south, and at the period when Ammianus Marcellinus mentions
them they occupied Toxandria, that is to say the
region to the south of the Meuse, between that river and the Scheldt. Julian
completely defeated the Salian Franks, but he left them in possession of their
territory of Toxandria. Only, instead of occupying it
as conquerors, they held it as foederati, agreeing to defend it against all
other invaders. They furnished also to the armies of Rome soldiers whom we hear
of as serving in far distant regions. In the Notitia Dignitatum,
in which we find a sort of Army List of the Empire drawn up about the beginning
of the fifth century, there is mention of Salii senioresand Salii juniores, and we also find Salii figuring in the auxilia palatina.
At the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century the Salian
Franks established in Toxandria ceased to recognize
the authority of Rome, and began to assert their independence. It was at this
period that the Roman civilization disappeared from these regions. The Latin
language ceased to be spoken and the Germanic tongue was alone employed. Even
at the present day the inhabitants of these districts speak Flemish, a Germanic
dialect. The place-names were altered and took on a Germanic form, with the
terminations hem, ghem, seele, and zele, indicating a dwelling-place, loo
wood, dal valley. The Christian religion retreated along with the Roman
civilization, and those regions reverted to paganism. For a long time, it would
seem, these Salian Franks were held in check by the great Roman road which led,
by way of Arras, Cambrai, and Bavay, to Cologne, and
which was protected by numerous forts.
Clodion, Merovech. 431-451
The Salians were subdivided into a number of tribes each holding a pagus. Each of these divisions had a king who was chosen from
the most noble family, and who was distinguished from his fellow-Franks by his
long hair—criniti reges. The first of
these kings to whom we have a distinct reference bore the name of Clogio or Clojo (Clodion). He had
his seat at Dispargum, the exact position of which
has not been determined—it may have been Diest in
Brabant. Desiring to extend the borders of the Salian Franks he advanced
southwards in the direction of the great Roman road. Before reaching it,
however, he was surprised, near the town of Helena (Hélesmes-Nord),
when engaged in celebrating the betrothal of one of his warriors to a
fair-haired maiden, by Aetius, who exercised in the name of Rome the military
command in Gaul. He sustained a crushing defeat; the victor carried off his
chariots and took prisoner even the trembling bride. This was about the year
431. But Clodion was not long in recovering from this defeat. He sent spies
into the neighborhood of Cambrai, defeated the Romans, and captured the town.
He had thus gained command of the great Roman road. Then, without encountering
opposition, he advanced as far as the Somme, which marked the limit of Frankish
territory. About this period Tournai on the Scheldt seems to have become the
capital of the Salian Franks.
Clodion was succeeded in the kingship of the Franks by Merovech. All our
histories of France assert that he was the son of Clodion; but Gregory of Tours
simply says that he belonged to the family of that king, and he does not give
even this statement as certain; it is maintained, he says, by certain persons.
We should perhaps refer to Merovech certain statements of the Greek historian
Priscus, who lived about the middle of the fifth century. On the death of a
king of the Franks, he says, his two sons disputed the succession. The elder
betook himself to Attila to seek his support; the younger preferred to claim
the protection of the Emperor, and journeyed to Rome. “I saw him there”, he
says; “he was still quite young. His fair hair, thick and very long, fell over
his shoulders”. Aetius, who was at this time in Rome, received him graciously,
loaded him with presents, and sent him back as a friend and ally. Certainly, in
the sequel the Salian Franks responded to the appeal of Aetius and mustered to
oppose the great invasion of Attila, fighting in the ranks of the Roman army at
the battle of the Mauriac Plain (AD 451). The Vita Lupi,
in which some confidence may be placed, names King Merovech among the
combatants.
Various legends have gathered round the figure of Merovech. The pseudo-Fredegar narrates that as the mother of this prince was
sitting by the sea-shore a monster sprang from the waves and overpowered her;
and from this union was born Merovech. Evidently the legend owes its origin to
an attempt to explain the etymology of the name Merovech, son of the sea. In
consequence of this legend some historians have maintained that Merovech was a
wholly mythical personage and they have sought out some remarkable etymologies
to explain the name Merovingian, which is given to the kings of the first
dynasty; but in our opinion the existence of this prince is sufficiently
proved, and we interpret the term Merovingian as meaning descendants of
Merovech.
Childeric. 463
Merovech had a son named Childeric. The relationship is attested in precise
terms by Gregory of Tours who says cujus filius fuit Childericus.
In addition to the legendary narratives about Childeric which Gregory gathered
from oral tradition, we have also some very precise details which the
celebrated historian borrowed from annals now no longer extant. The legendary
tale is as follows. Childeric, who was extremely licentious, dishonored the
daughters of many of the Franks. His subjects therefore rose in their wrath,
drove him from the throne, and even threatened to kill him. He fled to
Thuringia—it is uncertain whether this was Thuringia beyond the Rhine, or
whether there was a Thuringia on the left bank of the river—but he left behind
him a faithful friend whom he charged to win back the allegiance of the Franks.
Childeric and his friend broke a gold coin in two and each took a part.
"When I send you my part", said the friend, "and the pieces fit
together to form one whole you may safely return to your country". The
Franks unanimously chose for their king Aegidius, who had succeeded Aetius in
Gaul as magister militum. At the end of eight
years the faithful friend, having succeeded in gaining over the Franks, sent to
Childeric the token agreed upon, and the prince, on his return, was restored to
the throne. The queen of the Thuringians, Basina by name, left her husband Basinus to follow Childeric. "I know thy worth",
said she, "and thy great courage; therefore I have come to live with thee.
If I had known, even beyond the sea, a man more worthy than thou art, I would
have gone to him". Childeric, well pleased, married her forthwith, and
from their union was born Clovis. This legend, on which it would be rash to
base any historical conclusion, was amplified later, and the further
developments of it have been preserved by the pseudo-Fredegar and the author of the Liber Historiae.
But alongside of this legendary story we have some definite information
regarding Childeric. While the main centre of his
kingdom continued to be in the neighborhood of Tournai, he fought along with the
Roman generals in the valley of the Loire against all the enemies who sought to
wrest Gaul from the Empire. Unlike his predecessor Clodion and his son Clovis,
he faithfully fulfilled his duties as a foederatus. In the year 463 the
Visigoths made an effort to extend their dominions to the banks of the Loire.
Aegidius marched against them, and defeated them at Orleans, Friedrich, brother
of King Theodoric II, being slain in the battle.
Now we know for certain that Childeric was present at this battle. A short
time afterwards the Saxons made a descent, by way of the North Sea, the
Channel, and the Atlantic, under the leadership of a chief named Odovacar,
established themselves in some islands at the mouth of the Loire, and
threatened the town of Angers on the Mayenne. The
situation was the more serious because Aegidius had lately died (October 464),
leaving the command to his son Syagrius. Childeric threw himself into Angers
and held it against the Saxons. He succeeded in beating off the besiegers,
assumed the offensive, and recaptured from the Saxons the islands which they
had seized. The defeated Odovacar placed himself, like Childeric, at the
service of Rome, and the two adversaries, now reconciled, barred the path of a
troop of Alemans who were returning from a pillaging expedition into Italy.
Thus Childeric policed Gaul on behalf of Rome and endeavored to check the
inroads and forays of the other barbarians.
The death of Childeric probably took place in the year 481, and he was
buried at Tournai. His tomb was discovered in the year 1653. In it was a ring
bearing his name, CHILDIRICI REGIS, with the image of the head and shoulders of
a long-haired warrior. Numerous objects of value, arms, jewels, remains of a
purple robe ornamented with golden bees, gold coins bearing the effigies of Leo
I and Zeno, Emperors of Constantinople, were found in the tomb. Such of these
treasures as could be preserved are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. They serve as evidence that
these Merovingian kings were fond of luxury and possessed quantities of
valuable objects. In the ensuing volume it will be seen how Childeric's son
Clovis broke with his father's policy, threw off his allegiance to the Empire,
and conquered Gaul for his own hand. While Childeric was reigning at Tournai,
another Salian chief, Ragnachar, reigned at Cambrai,
the town which Clodion had taken; the residence of a third, named Chararic, is unknown to us.
The Ripuarian Franks. 360-481
The Salian Franks, as we have said above, were so called in
contradistinction to the Ripuarians. The latter doubtless included a certain
number of tribes, such as the Ampsivarii and the Bructeri. Julian, in the year 360, checked the advance of
these barbarians and forced them to retire across the Rhine. In 389 Arbogast
similarly checked their inroads and conquered all their territory in 392, as we
have already said. But in the beginning of the fifth century, when Stilicho had
withdrawn the Roman garrisons from the banks of the Rhine, they were able to
advance without hindrance and establish themselves on the left bank of the
river. Their progress however was far from rapid. They only gained possession
of Cologne at a time when Salvian, born about 400,
was a man in middle life; and even then the town was retaken. It did not
finally pass into their hands until the year 463. The town of Treves was taken
and burned by the Franks four times before they made themselves masters of it.
Towards 470 the Ripuarians had founded a fairly compact kingdom, of which the
principal cities were Aix-la-Chapelle, Bonn, Juliers,
and Zülpich. They had advanced southwards as far as Divodurum (Metz), the fortifications of which seem to have
defied all their efforts. The Roman civilization, the Latin language, and even
the Christian religion seem to have disappeared from the regions occupied by
the compact masses of these invaders. The present frontier of the French and
German languages, or a frontier drawn a little further to the south—for it
appears that in course of time French has gained ground a little—indicates the
limit of their dominions. In the course of their advance southwards, the
Ripuarians came into collision with the Alemans, who had already made
themselves masters of Alsace and were endeavoring to enlarge their borders in
all directions. There were many battles between the Ripuarians and Alemans, of
one of which, fought at Zülpich (Tolbiacum),
a record has been preserved. Sigebert, king of the Ripuarians, was there
wounded in the knee and walked lame for the rest of his life; whence he was
known as Sigebertus Claudus.
It appears that at this time the Alemans had penetrated far north into the
kingdom of the Ripuarians. This kingdom was destined to have but a transient
existence; we shall see in the following volume how it was destroyed by Clovis,
and how all the Frankish tribes on the left bank of the Rhine were brought
under his authority.
While the Salian and Ripuarian Franks were spreading along the left bank of
the Rhine, and founding flourishing kingdoms there, other Frankish tribes
remained on the right bank. They were firmly established, especially to the
north of the Main, and among them the ancient tribe of the Chatti,
from whom the Hessians are derived, took a leading place. Later this territory
formed one of the duchies into which Germany was divided, and took from its
Frankish inhabitants the name of Franconia.
The Salic Law. 507-511
If we desire to make ourselves acquainted with the manners and customs of
the Franks, we must have recourse to the most ancient document which has come
down from them—the Salic Law. The oldest redaction of this Law, as will be
shown in the next volume, probably dates only from the last years of Clovis
(507-511), but in it are codified much more ancient usages. On the basis of
this code we can conjecture the condition of the Franks in the time of Clodion,
of Merovech, and of Childeric. The family is still a very closely united whole;
there is solidarity among relatives even to a remote degree. If a murderer
could not pay the fine to which he had been sentenced, he must bring before the mâl (court) twelve comprobators who made affirmation that he could not pay it. That done, he returned to his dwelling,
took up some earth from each of the four corners of his room, and cast it with
the left hand over his shoulder towards his nearest relative; then, barefoot
and clad only in his shirt, but bearing a spear in his hand, he leaped over the
hedge which surrounded his dwelling. Once this ceremony had been performed, it
devolved upon his relative, to whom he had thereby ceded his house, to pay the
fine in his place. He might appeal in this way to a series of relatives one
after another; and if, ultimately, none of them was able to pay, he was brought
before four successive mâls, and if no one took pity
on him and paid his debt, he was put to death. But if the family was thus a
unit for the payment of fines, it had the compensating advantage of sharing the
fine paid for the murder of one of its members. Since the solidarity of the
family sometimes entailed dangerous consequences, it was permissible for an
individual to break these family ties. The man who wished to do so presented
himself at the mâl before the centenarius and broke into four pieces, above his
head, three wands of alder. He then threw the pieces into the four corners,
declaring that he separated himself from his relatives and renounced all rights
of succession. The family included the slaves and liti or freedmen. Slaves were the chattels of their master; if they were wounded,
maimed, or killed, the master received the compensation; on the other hand, if
the slave had committed any crime the master was obliged to pay, unless he
preferred to give him up to bear the punishment. The Franks recognized private
property, and severe penalties were denounced against those who invaded the
rights of ownership; there are penalties for stealing from another's garden,
meadow, corn-field, or flax-field, and for ploughing another's land. At a man's
death all his property was divided among his sons; a daughter had no claim to
any share of it. Later, she is simply excluded from Salic ground, that is from
her father's house and the land that surrounds it.
We find also in the Salic Law some information about the organization of
the State. The royal power appears strong. Any man who refuses to appear before
the royal tribunal is outlawed. All his goods are confiscated and anyone who
chooses may slay him with impunity; no one, not even his wife, may give him
food, under penalty of a very heavy fine. All those who are employed about the
king's person are protected by a special sanction. Their wergeld is three times as high as that of other Franks of the same social status. Over
each of the territorial divisions called pagi the king placed a representative of his authority known as the grafio, or, to give him his later title, the comes.
The grafio maintained order within his
jurisdiction, levied such fines as were due to the king, executed the sentences
of the courts, and seized the property of condemned persons who refused to pay
their fines. The pagus was in turn subdivided
into "hundreds" (centenae). Each
"hundred" had its court of judgment known as the mâl;
the place where it met was known as the mâlberg.
This tribunal was presided over by the centenarius or thunginus—these terms appear to us to be
synonymous. Historians have devoted much discussion to the question whether
this official was appointed by the king or elected by the freemen of the
"hundred". At the court of the "hundred" all the freemen
had a right to be present, but only a few of them took part in the
proceedings—some of them would be nominated for this duty on one occasion, some
on another. In their capacity as assistants to the centenarius at the mâl the freemen were designated rachineburgi. In order to make a sentence valid it
was required that seven rachineburgi should
pronounce judgment. A plaintiff had the right to summon seven of them to give
judgment upon his suit. If they refused, they had to pay a fine of three sols.
If they persisted in their refusal, and did not undertake to pay the three sols
before sunset, they incurred a fine of fifteen sols.
Crimes and Offences
Every man’s life was rated at a certain value; this was his price, the wergeld. The wergeld of a Salian
Frank was 200 sols; that of a Roman 100 sols. If a Salian Frank had killed
another Salian, or a Roman, without aggravating circumstances, the Court
sentenced him to pay the price of the victim, the 200 or 100 sols. The compositio in this case is exactly equivalent to the wergeld; if, however, he had only wounded his victim
he paid, according to the severity of the injury, a lower sum proportionate to
the wergeld. If, however, the murder has taken
place in particularly atrocious circumstances, if the murderer has endeavored
to conceal the corpse, if he has been accompanied by an armed band, or if the
assassination has been unprovoked, the compositio may be three times, six times, nine times, the wergeld.
Of this compositio, two thirds were paid to
the relatives of the victim; this was the faida and
bought off the right of private vengeance; the other third was paid to the
State or to the king: it was called fretus or fredum from the German word Friede peace, and was a compensation for the breach of the public peace of which the
king is the guardian. Thus a very lofty principle was embodied in this penalty.
The Salic Law is mainly a tariff of the fines which must be paid for various
crimes and offences. The State thus endeavored to substitute the judicial
sentences of the courts for private vengeance, part of the compensation being
paid to the victim or his family to induce them to renounce this right. But we
may safely conjecture that the triumph of law over inveterate custom was not
immediate. It was long before families were willing to leave to the judgment of
the courts serious crimes which had been committed against them, such as
homicides and adulteries; they flew to arms and made war upon the guilty person
and his family. The forming in this way of armed bands was very detrimental to
public order.
The crimes mentioned most frequently in the Salic Law give us some grounds
on which to form an idea of the manners and characteristics of the Franks.
These Franks would seem to have been much given to bad language, for the Law
mentions a great variety of terms of abuse. It is forbidden to call one’s
adversary a fox or a hare, or to reproach him with having flung away his
shield; it is forbidden to call a woman meretrix, or to say that she had joined
the witches at their revels. Warriors who are so easily enraged readily pass to
violence and murder. Every form of homicide is mentioned in the Salic Law. The
roads are not safe, and are often infested by armed bands. In addition to
murder, theft is very often mentioned by the code — theft of fruits, of hay, of
cattle-bells, of horse-clogs, of animals, of river-boats, of slaves, and even
of freemen. All these thefts are punished with severity and are held by all to
be base and shameful crimes. But there is a punishment of special severity for
robbing a corpse which has been buried. The guilty person is outlawed, and is
to be treated like a wild beast.
The civilization of these Franks is primitive; they are, above all else,
warriors. As to their appearance, they brought their fair hair forward from the
top of the head, leaving the back of the neck bare. On their faces they
generally wore no hair but the moustache. They wore close-fitting garments,
fastened with brooches, and bound in at the waist by a leather belt which was
covered with bands of enameled iron and clasped by an ornamental buckle. From
this belt hung the long sword, the hanger or scramasax, and various articles of
the toilet, such as scissors and combs made of bone. From it too was hung the
single-bladed axe, the favorite weapon of the Franks, known as the francisca, which they used both at close quarters
and by hurling it at their enemies from a distance. They were also armed with a
long lance or spear formed of an iron blade at the end of a long wooden shaft.
For defense they carried a large shield, made of wood or wattles covered with
skins, the centre of which was formed by a convex
plate of metal, the boss, fastened by iron rods to the body of the shield. They
were fond of jewellery, wearing gold finger-rings and
armlets, and collars formed of beads of amber or glass or paste inlaid with color.
They were buried with their arms and ornaments, and many Frankish cemeteries have
been explored in which the dead were found fully armed, as if prepared for a
great military review. The Franks were universally distinguished for courage.
As Sidonius Apollinaris wrote of them: "from their youth up war is their
passion. If they are crushed by weight of numbers, or through being taken at a
disadvantage, death may overwhelm them, but not fear."
I.
FROM THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE FRANKS TO THE DEATH
OF CLOVIS
(AD. 240-511)
It is well known that the name of “Frank” is not to be found in the long
list of German tribes preserved to us in the “Germania” of Tacitus. Little or
nothing is heard of them before the reign of Gordian III. In AD 240 Aurelian,
then a tribune of the sixth legion stationed on the Rhine, encountered a body
of marauding Franks near Mayence, and drove them
back into their marshes. The word “Francia” is also found at a still earlier
date, in the old Roman chart called the Charta Peutingeria,
and occupies on the map the right bank of the Rhine from opposite Coblentz to
the sea. The origin of the Franks has been the subject of frequent debate, to
which French patriotism has occasionally lent some asperity. At the time when
they first appear in history, the Romans had neither the taste nor the means
for historical research, and we are therefore obliged to depend in a great
measure upon conjecture and combination. It has been disputed whether the word
“Frank” was the original designation of a tribe, which by a change of
habitation emerged at the period above mentioned into the light of history, or
that of a new league, formed for some common object of aggression or defence, by nations hitherto familiar to us under other
names.
We can in this place do little more than refer to a controversy, the value
and interest of which has been rendered obsolete by the progress of historical
investigation. The darkness and void of history have as usual been filled with
spectral theories, which vanish at the challenge of criticism and before the
gradually increasing light of knowledge.
We need hardly say that the origin of the Franks has been traced to
fugitive colonists from Troy; for what nation under Heaven has not sought to
connect itself, in some way or other, with the glorified heroes of the immortal
song? Nor is it surprising that French writers, desirous of transferring from
the Germans to themselves the honors of the Frankish name, should have made of
them a tribe of Gauls, whom some unknown cause had induced to settle in
Germany, and who afterwards sought to recover their ancient country from the
Roman conquerors. At the present day, however, historians of every nation,
including the French, are unanimous in considering the Franks as a powerful
confederacy of German tribes, who in the time of Tacitus inhabited the
north-western parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine. And this theory is so
well supported by many scattered notices, slight in themselves, but powerful
when combined, that we can only wonder that it should ever have been called in
question. Nor was this aggregation of tribes under the new name of Franks a
singular instance; the same took place in the case of the Alemanni and Saxons.
The actuating causes of these new unions are unknown. They may be sought
for either in external circumstances, such as the pressure of powerful enemies
from without, or in an extension of their own desires and plans, requiring the
command of greater means, and inducing a wider co-operation of those, whose
similarity of language and character rendered it most easy for them to unite.
But perhaps we need look no farther for an efficient cause than the spirit of
amalgamation which naturally arises among tribes of kindred race and language,
when their growing numbers, and an increased facility of moving from place to
place, bring them into more frequent contact. The same phenomenon may be
observed at certain periods in the history of almost every nation, and the
spirit which gives rise to it has generally been found strong enough to
overcome the force of particular interests and petty nationalities.
SICAMBRI AND SALIAN FRANKS.
The etymology of the name adopted by the new confederacy is also uncertain.
The conjecture which has most probability in its favor is that adopted long ago
by Gibbon, and confirmed in recent times by the authority of Grimm, which
connects it with the German word Frank (free). The derivation preferred
by Adelung from frak,
with the inserted nasal, differ of Grimm only in appearance. No small
countenance is given to this derivation by the constant recurrence in after
times of the epithet “truces”, “feroces”, which the
Franks were so fond of applying to themselves, and which they certainly did
everything to deserve. Tacitus speaks of nearly all the tribes, whose various
appellations were afterwards merged in that of Frank, as living in the
neighborhood of the Rhine. Of these the principal were the Sicambri (the chief
people of the old Iscaevonian tribe), who,
as there is reason to believe, were identical with the Salian Franks. The
confederation further comprised the Bructeri,
the Ghamavi, Ansibarii, Tubantes, Marsi, and Chasuarii, of
whom the five last had formerly belonged to the celebrated Cheruscan league, which, under the hero Arminius,
destroyed three Roman legions in the Teutoburgian Forest.
The strongest evidence of the identity of these tribes with the Franks, is the
fact that, long after their settlement in Gaul, the distinctive names of the
original people were still occasionally used as synonymous with that of the
confederation. The Sicambri are well known in the Roman history for their
active and enterprising spirit, and the determined opposition which they
offered to the greatest generals of Rome. It was on their account that Caesar
bridged the Rhine in the neighborhood of Bonn, and spent eighteen days, as he
informs us with significant minuteness, on the German side of that river.
Drusus made a similar attempt against them with little better success. Tiberius
was the first who obtained any decided advantage over them; and even he, by his
own confession, was obliged to have recourse to treachery. An immense number of
them were then transported by the command of Augustus to the left bank of the
Rhine, “that”, as the Panegyrist expresses it, “they might be compelled to lay
aside not only their arms but their ferocity”. That they were not, however,
even then, so utterly destroyed or expatriated as the flatterers of the Emperor
would have us believe, is evident from the fact that they appear again under the
same name, in less than three centuries afterwards, as the most powerful tribe
in the Frankish confederacy.
The league thus formed was subject to two strong motives, either of which
might alone have been sufficient to impel a brave and active people into a
career of migration and conquest. The first of these was necessity, the actual
want of the necessaries of life for their increasing population, and the second
desire, excited to the utmost by the spectacle of the wealth and civilization
of the Gallic provinces.
As long as the Romans held firm possession of Gaul, the Germans could do
little to gratify their longings; they could only obtain a settlement in that
country by the consent of the Emperor and on certain conditions. Examples of
such merely tolerated colonization were the Tribocci, the Vangiones, and the Ubii at
Cologne. But when the Roman Empire began to feel the numbness of approaching
dissolution, and, as is usually the case, first in its extremities, the Franks
were amongst the most active and successful assailants of their enfeebled foe:
and if they were attracted towards the West by the abundance they beheld of all
that could relieve their necessities and gratify their lust of spoil, they were
also impelled in the same direction by the Saxons, the rival league, a people
as brave and perhaps more barbarous than themselves. A glance at the map of
Germany of that period will do much to explain to us the migration of the
Franks, and that long and bloody feud between them and the Saxons, which began
with the Gatti and Cherusci and
needed all the power and energy of a Charlemagne to bring to a successful
close. The Saxons formed behind the Franks, and could only reach the provinces
of Gaul by sea. It was natural therefore that they should look with the intensest hatred upon a people who barred their
progress to a more genial climate and excluded them from their share in the
spoils of the Roman world.
The Franks advanced upon Gaul from two different directions, and under the
different names of Salians, and Ripuarians, the former of whom we have reason
to connect more particularly with the Sicambrian tribe.
The origin of the words Salian and Ripuarian, which are first used respectively
by Ammianus Marcellinus and Jordanes, is very obscure, and has served to
exercise the ingenuity of ethnographers. There are, however, no sufficient
grounds for a decided opinion. At the same time it is by no means improbable
that the river Yssel, Isala or
Sal (for it has borne all these appellations), may have given its name to that
portion of the Franks who lived along its course. With still greater
probability may the name Ripuarii or Riparii, be derived from Ripa,
a term used by the Romans to signify the Rhine. These dwellers on the Bank were
those that remained in their ancient settlements while their Salian kinsmen
were advancing into the heart of Gaul.
It would extend the introductory portion of this work beyond its proper
limits to refer, however briefly, to all the successive efforts of the Franks
to gain a permanent footing upon Roman ground. Though often defeated, they
perpetually renewed the contest; and when Roman historians and panegyrists
inform us that the whole nation was several times “utterly destroyed” the
numbers and geographical position in which we find them a short time after
every such annihilation, prove to us the vanity of such accounts. Aurelian, as
we have seen, defeated them at Mayence, in AD 242,
and drove them into the swamps of Holland. They were routed again about twelve
years afterwards by Gallienus; but they quickly recovered from this blow, for
in AD 276 we find them in possession of sixty Gallic cities,
of which Probus is said to have deprived them, and to have destroyed
400,000 of them and their allies on Roman ground. In AD 280,
they gave their aid to the usurper Proculus, who
claimed to be of Frankish blood, but was nevertheless betrayed by them; and
in AD 288, Carausius the Menapian was
sent to clear the seas of their roving barks. But the latter found it more
agreeable to shut his eyes to their piracies, in return for a share of the
booty, and they afterwards aided in protecting him from the chastisement due to
his treachery, and in investing him with the imperial purple in Britain.
In the reign of Maximian, we find a Frankish army, probably of Ripuarians,
at Treves, where they were defeated by that emperor; and both he and Diocletian
adopted the title of “Francicus”, which many
succeeding emperors were proud to bear. The first appearance of the Salian
Franks, with whom this history is chiefly concerned, is in the occupation of
the Batavian Islands, in the Lower Rhine. They were attacked in that territory
in ad 292, by Constantius Chlorus, who, as is
said, not only drove them out of Batavia, but marched, triumphant and
unopposed, through their own country as far as the Danube. The latter part of
this story has little foundation either in history or probability.
The more determined and successful resistance to their progress was made by
Constantine the Great, in the first part of the fourth century. We must,
however, receive the extravagant accounts of the imperial annalists with
considerable caution. It is evident, even from their own language, that the
great emperor effected more by stratagem than by force. He found the Salians
once more in Batavia, and, after defeating them in a great battle, carried off
a large number of captives to Treves, the chief residence of the emperor, and a
rival of Rome itself in the splendor of its public buildings.
It was in the circus of this city, and in the presence of Constantine, that
the notorious “Ludi Francici”
were celebrated; at which several thousand Franks, including their kings Regaisus and Ascaricus,
were compelled to fight with wild beasts, to the inexpressible delight of the
Christian spectators. “Those of the Frankish prisoners”, says Eumenius, “whose perfidy unfitted them for military
service, and their ferocity for servitude, were given to the wild beasts as a
show, and wearied the raging monsters by their multitude”. “This magnificent
spectacle” Nazarius praises, some twenty
years after it had taken place, in the most enthusiastic terms, comparing
Constantine to a youthful Hercules who had strangled two serpents in the cradle
of his empire. Eumenius calls it a “daily
and eternal victory”, and says that Constantine had erected terror as a bulwark
against his barbarian enemies. This terror did not, however, prevent the Franks
from taking up arms to revenge their butchered countrymen, nor the Alemanni
from joining in the insurrection. The skill and fortune of Constantine
generally prevailed; he destroyed great numbers of the Franks and the “innumeroe gentes”
who fought on their side, and really appears for a time to have checked their
progress.
It is impossible to read the brief yet confused account of these incessant
encounters between the Romans and Barbarians, without coming to the conclusion
that only half the truth is told; that while every advantage gained by the
former is greatly exaggerated, the successes of the latter are passed over in
silence. The most glorious victory of a Roman general procures him only a few
months repose, and the destruction of “hundreds of thousands” of Franks and Alemanni
seems but to increase their numbers. We may fairly say of the Franks, what
Julian and Eutropius have said respecting the Goths, that they were not so
utterly annihilated as the panegyrists pretend, and that many of the victories
gained over them cost “more money than blood”.
The death of Constantine was the signal for a fresh advance on the part of
the Franks. Libanius, the Greek rhetorician, when extolling the deeds of
Constans, the youngest son of Constantine the Great, says that the emperor
stemmed the impetuous torrent of barbarians “by a love of war even greater than
their own”. He also says that they received overseers; but this was no doubt on
Roman ground, which would account for their submission, as we know that the
Franks were more solicitous about real than nominal possession. During the
frequent struggles for the Purple which took place at this period, the aid of
the Franks was sought for by the different pretenders, and rewarded, in case of
success, by large grants of land within the limits of the empire. The barbarians
consented, in fact, to receive as a gift what had really been won by their own
valor, and could not have been withheld. Even previous to the reign of
Constantine, some Frankish generals had risen to high posts in the service of
Roman emperors. Magnentius, himself a German, endeavored to support his
usurpation by Frankish and Saxon mercenaries; and Silvanus, who was driven into
rebellion by the ingratitude of Constantius, whom he had faithfully served, was
a Frank.
The state of confusion into which the empire was thrown by the turbulence
and insolence of the Roman armies, and the selfish ambition of their leaders,
was highly favorable to the progress of the Franks in Gaul. Their next great
and general movement took place in ad 355, when, along the whole Roman frontier
from Strasburg to the sea, they began to cross the Rhine, and to throw
themselves in vast numbers upon the Gallic provinces, with the full
determination of forming permanent settlements. But again the relenting fates
of Rome raised up a hero in the person of the Emperor Julian, worthy to have
lived in the most glorious period of her history. After one or two unsuccessful
efforts, Julian succeeded in retaking Cologne and other places, which the
Germans, true to their traditionary hatred of walled towns, had laid bare of
all defenses.
THE SALIANS AT
TOXANDRIA.
In the last general advance of the Franks in ad 355, the Salians had not
only once more recovered Batavia, but had spread into Toxandria,
in which they firmly fixed themselves. It is important to mark the date of this
event, because it was at this time that the Salians made their first permanent
settlement on the left bank of the Rhine, and by the acquisition of Toxandria laid the foundation of the kingdom of
Clovis. Julian indeed attacked them there in ad 358, but he had probably good
reasons for not reducing them to despair, as we find that they were permitted
to retain their newly acquired lands, on condition of acknowledging themselves
subjects of the empire.
He was better pleased to have them as soldiers than as enemies, and they,
having felt the weight of his arm, were by no means averse to serve in his
ranks, and to enrich themselves by the plunder of the East. Once in undisputed
possession of Toxandria, they gradually spread
themselves further and further, until, at the beginning of the fifth century,
we find them occupying the left bank of the Rhine; as may safely be inferred
from the fact that Tongres, Arras, and Amiens
are mentioned as the most northern of the Roman stations. At this time they
reached Tournai, which became henceforth the chief town of the Salian
Franks. The Ripuarians, meanwhile, were extending themselves from Andernach downwards along the middle Rhine, and gained
possession of Cologne about the time of the conquest of Tournai by
their Salian brethren. On the left of the river they held all that part of
Germania Secunda which was not occupied by
the Salians. In Belgica Secunda,
they spread themselves as far as the Moselle, but were not yet in
possession of Treves, as we gather from the frequent assaults made by them upon
that city. The part of Gaul therefore now subject to the Ripuarians was bounded
on the north-west by the Silva Carbonaria,
or Kolhenwald; on the south-west by the Meuse
and the forest of Ardennes; and on the south by the Moselle.
We shall be the less surprised that some of the fairest portions of the
Roman Empire should thus fall an almost unresisting prey to barbarian invaders,
when we remember that the defence of the
empire itself was sometimes committed to the hands of Frankish soldiers. Those
of the Franks who were already settled in Gaul, were often engaged in endeavoring
to drive back the ever-increasing multitude of fresh barbarians, who hurried
across the Rhine to share in the bettered fortunes of their kinsmen, or even to
plunder them of their newly-acquired riches. Thus Mallobaudes,
who is called king of the Franks, and held the office of Domesticorum Comes under Gratian,
commanded in the Imperial army which defeated the Alemanni at Argentaria.
And, again, in the short reign of Maximus, who assumed the purple in Gaul,
Spain, and Britain, near the end of the fourth century, we are told that three
Frankish kings, Genobaudes, Marcomeres, and Sunno, crossed
the Lower Rhine, and plundered the country along the river as far as Cologne;
although the whole of Northern Gaul was already in possession of their
countrymen. The generals Nonnius and Quintinus, whom Maximus had left behind him at Treves, the
seat of the Imperial government in Gaul, hastened to Cologne, from which the
marauding Franks had already retired with their booty. Quintinus crossed
the Rhine, in pursuit, at Neus, and, unmindful
of the fate of Varus in the Teutoburgian wood,
followed the retreating enemy into the morasses. The Franks, once more upon
friendly and familiar ground, turned upon their pursuers, and are said to have
destroyed nearly the whole Roman army with poisoned arrows.
The war continued, and was only brought to a successful conclusion for the
Romans by the courage and conduct of Arbogastes,
a Frank in the service of Theodosius. Unable to make peace with his barbarous
countrymen, and sometimes defeated by them, this general crossed the Rhine when
the woods were leafless, ravaged the country of the Chamavi, Bructeri, and Catti, and having slain two of their
chiefs named Priam and Genobaudes,
compelled Marcomeres and Sunno to give hostages. The submission of the Franks
must have been of short continuance, for we read that in ad 398 these same
kings, Marcomeres and Sunno, were again found ravaging the left bank of the Rhine
by Stilicho. This famous warrior defeated them in a great battle, and sent
the former, or perhaps both of them, in chains to Italy, where Marcomeres died in prison.
The first few years of the fifth century are occupied in the struggle
between Alaric the Goth and Stilicho, which ended in the sacking of Rome by the
former in the year 410 ad, the same in which he died.
While the Goths were inflicting deadly wounds on the very heart of the
empire, the distant provinces of Germany and Gaul presented a scene of
indescribable confusion. Innumerable hosts of Astingians,
Vandals, Alani, Suevi, and Burgundians, threw themselves like robbers upon
the prostrate body of Imperial Rome, and scrambled for the gems which fell from
her costly diadem. In such a storm the Franks could no longer sustain the part
of champions of the empire, but doubtless had enough to do to defend themselves
and hold their own. We can only guess at the fortune which befell the nations
in that dark period, from the state in which we find them when the glimmering
light of history once more dawns upon the chaos.
PHARAMOND A MYTHICAL PERSONAGE
Of the internal state of the Frankish league in these times, we learn from
ancient authorities absolutely nothing on which we can safely depend. The blank
is filled up by popular fable. It is in this period, about 417 ad, that the
reign of Pharamond is placed, of whom we
may more than doubt whether he ever existed at all. To this hero was
afterwards ascribed, not only the permanent conquests made at this juncture by
the various tribes of Franks, but the establishment of the monarchy, and the
collection and publication of the well-known Salic laws. The sole
foundation for this complete and harmonious fabric is a passage interpolated
into an ancient chronicle of the fifth century; and, with this single
exception, Pharamond’s name is never
mentioned before the seventh century. The whole story is perfected and rounded
off by the author of the “Gesta Francorum”, according
to whom, Pharamond was the son of Marcomeres, the prince who ended his days in the
Italian prison. The fact that nothing is known of him by Gregory of Tours
or Fredegarius is sufficient to prevent our regarding him as an
historical personage. To this may be added that he is not mentioned in the
prologue of the Salic law, with which his name has been so intimately
associated by later writers.
Though well authenticated names of persons and places fail us at this time,
it is not difficult to conjecture what must have been the main facts of the
case. Great changes took place among the Franks, in the first half of the fifth
century, which did much to prepare them for their subsequent career. The
greater portion of them had been mere marauders, like their German brethren of
other nations: they now began to assume the character of settlers; and as the
idea of founding an extensive empire was still far from their thoughts, they
occupied in preference the lands which lay nearest to their ancient homes.
There are many incidental reasons which make this change in their mode of life
a natural and inevitable one. The country whose surface had once afforded a
rich and easily collected booty, and well repaid the hasty foray of weeks, and
even days, had been stripped of its movable wealth by repeated incursions of
barbarians still fiercer than themselves. All that was above the surface the
Alan and the Vandal had swept away, the treasures which remained had to be
sought for with the plough. The Franks were compelled to turn their attention
to that agriculture which their indolent and warlike fathers had hated; which
required fixed settlements, and all the laws of property and person
indissolubly connected therewith. Again, though there is no sufficient reason
to connect the Salic laws with the mythical name of Pharamond, or to suppose that they were altogether the work
of this age (since we know from Tacitus that the Germans had similar laws in
their ancient forests), yet it is very probable was insufficiently defended, he
advanced upon that city, and succeeded in taking it. After spending a few days
within the walls of his new acquisition, he marched as far as the river Somme.
His progress was checked by Aetius and Majorian, who surprised him in the
neighborhood of Arras, at a place called Helena (Lens), while celebrating a
marriage, and forced him to retire. Yet at the end of the war, the Franks
remained in full possession of the country which Clodion had overrun; and the
Somme became the boundary of the Salian land upon the south-west, as it
continued to be until the time of Clovis.
Clodion died in AD 448, and was thus saved from the
equally pernicious alliance or enmity of the ruthless conqueror Attila. This
“Scourge of God”, as he delighted to be called, appeared in Gaul about the year
450 AD, at the head of an innumerable host of mounted Huns; a race
so singular in their aspect and habits as to seem scarcely human, and compared
with whom, the wildest Franks and Goths must have appeared rational and
civilized beings.
FRANKS AT CHÂLONS.
The time of Attila’s descent upon the Rhine was well chosen for the
prosecution of his scheme of universal dominion. Between the fragment of the
Roman Empire, governed by Aetius, and the Franks under the successors of
Clodion, there was either open war or a hollow truce. The succession to the
chief power in the Salian tribe was the subject of a violent dispute between
two Frankish princes, the elder of whom is supposed by some to have been
called Merovaeus. We have seen reason to doubt
the existence of a prince of this name; and there is no evidence that either of
the rival candidates was a son of Clodion. Whatever their parentage or name may
have been, the one took part with Attila, and the other with the Roman Aetius,
on condition, no doubt, of having their respective claims allowed and supported
by their allies. In the bloody and decisive battle of the Catalaunian Fields round Châlons, Franks, under the
name of Leti and Ripuarii,
served under the so-called Merovaeus in the
army of Aetius, together with Theoderic and
his Visigoths. Among the forces of Attila another body of Franks was arrayed,
either by compulsion, or instigated to this unnatural course by the fierce
hatred of party spirit. From the result of the battle of Châlons, we must
suppose that the ally of Aetius succeeded to the throne of Clodion.
The effects of the invasion of Gaul by Attila were neither great nor
lasting, and his retreat left the German and Roman parties in much the same
condition as he found them. The Roman Empire indeed was at an end in that
province, yet the valor and wisdom of Egidius enabled
him to maintain, as an independent chief, the authority which he had faithfully
exercised, as Master-General of Gaul, under the noble and virtuous Magorian. The extent of his territory is not clearly
defined, but it must have been, in part at least, identical with that of which
his son and successor, Syagrius, was deprived by Clovis. Common opinion limits
this to the country between the Oise, the Marne, and the Seine, to which some
writers have added Auxerre and Troyes. The respect in which Egidius was held by the Franks, as well as his own
countrymen, enabled him to set at defiance the threats and machinations of the
barbarian Ricimer, who virtually ruled at Rome, though in another's name. The
strongest proof of the high opinion they entertained of the merits of Egidius, is said to have been given by the Salians in the
reign of their next king. The prince, to whom the name Merovaeus has
been arbitrarily assigned, was succeeded by his son Childeric, in ad 456. The
conduct of this licentious youth was such as to disgust and alienate his
subjects, who had not yet ceased to value female honor, nor adopted the loose
manners of the Romans and their Gallic imitators. The authority of the Salian
kings over the fierce warriors of their tribe was held by a precarious tenure.
The loyalty which distinguished the Franks in later times had not yet arisen in
their minds, and they did not scruple to send the corrupter of their wives and
daughters into ignominious exile. Childeric took refuge with Bissinus(or Bassinus), king
of the Thuringians, a people dwelling on the river Unstrut.
It was then that the Franks, according to the somewhat improbable account of
Gregory, unanimously chose Egidius for
their king, and actually submitted to his rule for the space of eight years. At
the end of that period, returning affection for their native prince, the mere
love of change, or the machinations of a party, induced the Franks to recall
Childeric from exile, or, at all events, to allow him to return. Whatever may
have been the cause of his restoration, it does not appear to have been the
consequence of an improvement in his morals. The period of his exile had been
characteristically employed in the seduction of Basina, the wife of his
hospitable protector at the Thuringian Court. This royal lady, whose character
may perhaps do something to diminish the guilt of Childeric in our eyes, was
unwilling to be left behind on the restoration of her lover to his native
country. Scarcely had he re-established his authority when he was unexpectedly
followed by Basina, whom he immediately married. The offspring of this
questionable alliance was Clovis, who was born in the year 466. The remainder
of Childeric’s reign was chiefly spent in a struggle with the Visigoths, in
which Franks and Romans, under their respective leaders, Childeric and Egidius, were amicably united against the common foe.
“THE ELDEST SON OF THE CHURCH” - DIVISIONS OF
GAUL.
We hasten to the reign of Clovis, who, during a rule of about thirty years,
not only united the various tribes of Franks under one powerful dynasty, and
founded a kingdom in Gaul on a broad and enduring basis, but made his throne
the centre of union to by far the greater
portion of the whole German race.
When Clovis succeeded his father as king of the Salians, at the early age
of fifteen, the extent of his territory and the number of his subjects were, as
we know, extremely small; at his death, he left to his successors a kingdom
more extensive than that of modern France.
The influence of the grateful partiality discernible in the works of
Catholic historians and chroniclers towards “the Eldest Son of the Church”, who
secured for them the victory over heathens on the one side, and heretics on the
other, prevents us from looking to them for an unbiassed estimate of
his character. Many of his crimes appeared to be committed in the cause of
Catholicity itself, and these they could hardly see in their proper light.
Pagans and Arians would have painted him in different colors; and had any of
their works come down to us, we might have sought the truth between the
positive of partiality and the negative of hatred. But fortunately, while the
chroniclers praise his actions in the highest terms, they tell us what those
actions were, and thus compel us to form a very different judgment from their
own. It would not be easy to extract from the pages of his greatest admirers
the slightest evidence of his possessing any qualities but those which are
necessary to a conqueror. In the hands of Providence he was an instrument of
the greatest good to the country he subdued, inasmuch as he freed it from the
curse of division into petty states, and furthered the spread of Christianity
in the very heart of Europe. But of any word or action that could make us
admire or love the man, there is not a single trace in history. His undeniable
courage is debased by a degree of cruelty unusual even in his times; and the
consummate skill and prudence, which did more to raise him to his high position
than even his military qualities, are rendered odious by the forms they take of
unscrupulous falsehood, meanness, cunning and hypocrisy.
It will add to the perspicuity of our brief narrative of the conquests of
Clovis, if we pause for a moment to consider the extent and situation of the
different portions into which Gaul was divided at his accession.
There were in all six independent states: 1st, that of the Salians; 2nd,
that of the Ripuarians; 3rd, that of the Visigoths; 4th, that of the Burgundians;
5th, the kingdom of Syagrius; and, 6th, Armorica (by which the whole sea-coast
between Seine and Loire was then signified). Of the two first we have already
spoken. The Visigoths held the whole of Southern Gaul. Their boundary to the
north was the river Loire, and to the east the Pagus Vellavus (Auvergne).
The boundary of the Burgundians on the side of Roman Gaul, was the Pagus Lingonicus (Upper
Marne); to the west they were bounded by the territory of the Visigoths, as
above described.
The territory still held by the Romans was divided into two parts, of which
the one was held by Syagrius, who, according to common opinion, only ruled the country
between Oise, Marne, and Seine; to this some writers have added Auxerre,
Troyes, and Orleans. The other — viz., that portion of Roman Gaul not subject
to Syagrius—is of uncertain extent. Armorica (Bretagne and Maine), was an
independent state, inhabited by Britons and Saxons; but what was its form of
government is not exactly known. It is important to bear these geographical
divisions in mind, because they coincide with the successive Frankish conquests
made under Clovis and his sons.
CLOVIS ATTACKS SYAGRIUS.
It would be unphilosophical to ascribe to Clovis a preconceived
plan of making himself master of these several independent states, and of not
only overthrowing the sole remaining pillar of the Roman Empire in Gaul, but,
what was far more difficult, of subduing other German tribes, as fierce and
independent, and in some cases more numerous than his own. In what he did, he
was merely gratifying a passion for the excitements of war and acquisition, and
that desire of expanding itself to its utmost limits, which is natural to every
active, powerful, and imperious mind. He must indeed have been more than
human to foresee, through all the obstacles that lay in his path, the career he
was destined by Providence to run. He was not even master of the whole Salian
tribe; and besides the Salians, there were other Franks on the Rhine, the
Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Moselle, in no way inferior to his own
subjects, and governed by kings of the same family as himself. Nor was
Syagrius, to whom the anomalous power of his father Egidius had
descended, a despicable foe. His merits, indeed, were rather those of an able
lawyer and a righteous judge than of a warrior; but he had acquired by his
civil virtues a reputation which made him an object of envy to Clovis, who
dreaded perhaps the permanent establishment of a Roman dynasty in Gaul. There
were reasons for attacking Syagrius first, which can hardly have escaped the
cunning of Clovis, and which doubtless guided him in the choice of his earliest
victim. The very integrity of the noble Roman’s character was one of these
reasons. Had Clovis commenced the work of destruction by attacking his kinsmen
Sigebert of Cologne and Ragnachar of
Cambrai, he would not only have received no aid from Syagrius in his
unrighteous aggression, but might have found him ready to oppose it. But
against Syagrius it was easy for Clovis to excite the national spirit of his
brother Franks, both in and out of his own territory. In such an expedition,
even had the kings declined to take an active part, he might reckon on crowds
of volunteers from every Frankish gau.
As soon therefore as he had emerged from the forced inactivity of extreme
youth (a period in which, fortunately for him, he was left undisturbed by his
less grasping and unscrupulous neighbors), he determined to bring the question
of pre-eminence between the Franks and Romans to as early an issue as possible.
Without waiting for a plausible ground of quarrel, he challenged Syagrius,
more Germanico, to the field, that their
respective fates might be determined by the God of Battles. Ragnachar of Cambrai was solicited to accompany his
treacherous relative on this expedition, and agreed to do so. Ghararich, another Frankish prince, whose alliance had been
looked for, preferred waiting until fortune had decided, with the prudent intention
of siding with the winner, and coming fresh into the field in time to spoil the
vanquished.
Syagrius was at Soissons, which he had inherited from his father, when
Clovis, with characteristic decision and rapidity, passed through the wood of
Ardennes, and fell upon him with resistless force. The Roman was completely
defeated, and the victor, having taken possession of Soissons, Rheims, and
other Roman towns in the Belgica Secunda, extended his frontier to the river Loire, the
boundary of the Visigoths. This battle took place in ad 486.
We know little or nothing of the materials of which the Roman army was
composed. If it consisted entirely of Gauls, accustomed to depend on Roman aid,
and destitute of the spirit of freemen, the ease with which Syagrius was
defeated will cause us less surprise. Having lost all in a single battle, the
unfortunate Roman fled for refuge to Toulouse, the court of Alaric, king of the
Visigoths, who basely yielded him to the threats of the youthful conqueror. But
one fate awaited those who stood in the way of Clovis: Syagrius was immediately
put to death, less in anger, than from the calculating policy which guided all
the movements of the Salian’s unfeeling heart.
During the next ten years after the death of Syagrius, there is less to
relate of Clovis than might be expected from the commencement of his career. We
cannot suppose that such a spirit was really at rest: he was probably nursing
his strength, and watching his opportunities; for, with all his impetuosity, he
was not a man to engage in an undertaking without good assurance of
success.
Almost the only expedition of this inactive period of his life, is one
recorded in a doubtful passage by Gregory of Tours, as having been made against
the Tongrians. This people lived in the ancient
country of the Eburones, on the Elbe, and had formerly been subjects of
his mother Basina. The Tongrians were
defeated, and their territory was, nominally at least, incorporated with the
kingdom of Clovis.
ALEMANNI DEFEATED AT ZÜLPICH -
CONVERSION OF CLOVIS.
In the year 496 A.D. the Salians began that career of conquest,
which they followed up with scarcely any intermission until the death of their
warrior king.
The Alemanni, extending themselves from their original seats on the right
bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Danube, had pushed forward
into Germanica Prima, where they came into collision with the
Frankish subjects of King Sigebert of Cologne. Clovis flew to the assistance of
his kinsman, and defeated the Alemanni in a great battle in the neighborhood
of Zülpich. He then established a considerable
number of his Franks in the territory of the Alamanni, the traces of whose
residence are found in the names of Franconia and Frankfort.
The same year is rendered remarkable in ecclesiastical history by the
conversion of Clovis to Christianity. In AD 493, he had
married Clothildis, Chilperic the
king of Burgundy’s daughter, who, being herself a Christian, was naturally
anxious to turn away her warlike spouse from the rude faith of his forefathers.
The real result of her endeavors it is impossible to estimate, but, at all
events, she has not received from history the credit of success. The mere
suggestions of an affectionate wife would be considered as too simple and
prosaic a means of accounting for a change involving such mighty consequences.
The conversion of Clovis was so vitally important to the interests of the
Catholic Church, that the chroniclers of that wonder-loving age, profuse in the
employment of extraordinary means for the smallest ends, could never be brought
to believe that this great event was the result of anything but a miracle of
the most public and striking character.
The way in which the convictions of Clovis were changed is unknown to us,
but there were natural agencies at work, and his conversion is not, under the
circumstances, a thing to excite surprise. According to the common belief,
however, in the Roman Church, it was in the battle of Zülpich that
the heart of Clovis, callous to the pious solicitude of his wife, and the
powerful and alluring influence of the catholic ritual, was touched by a
special interposition of Providence in his behalf. When the fortune of the
battle seemed turning against him, he thought of the God whom his wife adored,
of whose power and majesty he had heard so much, and vowed that if he escaped
the present danger, and came off victorious, he would suffer himself to be
baptized, and become the champion of the Christian Faith. Like another Constantine,
he saw written on the face of Heaven that his prayer was heard; he conquered,
and fulfilled his promise at Christmas in the same year, when Remigius at
Rheims, with three thousand of his followers.
The sincerity of Clovis’s conversion
has been called in question for many reasons, such as the unsuit ability of his subsequent life to Christian
principles, but chiefly on the ground of the many political advantages to be
derived from a public profession of the Catholic Faith. We are too ready with
such explanations of the actions of distinguished characters, too apt to forget
that politicians are also men, and to overlook the very powerful influences
which lie nearer to their hearts than even political calculation. A spirit was
abroad in the world, drawing men away from the graves of a dead faith to the
life and light of the Gospel, a spirit which not even the coldest and sternest
heart could altogether resist. There was something, too, peculiarly imposing in
the attitude of the Christian Church at that period. All else in the Roman
world seemed dying of mere weakness and old age—the Christian Church was still
in the vigour of youth, and its professors
were animated by indomitable perseverance and boundless zeal. All else fell
down in terror before the Barbarian conqueror—the fabric of the Church seemed
indestructible, and its ministers stood erect in his presence, as if depending
for strength and aid upon a power, which was the more terrible, because
indefinite in its nature and uncertain in its mode of operation.
Nor were there wanting to the Catholic Church, even at that stage of its
development, those external means of influence which tell with peculiar force
upon the barbarous and untutored mind. The emperors of the Roman world had
reared its temples, adorned its shrines, and regulated its services, in a
manner which seemed to them best suited to the majesty of Heaven and their own.
Its altars were served by men distinguished by their learning, and by that
indestructible dignity of deportment, which is derived from conscious
superiority. The praises of God were chanted forth in well-chosen words and
impressive tones, or sung in lofty strains by tutored voices; while incense
rose to the vaulted aisle, as if to bear the prayers of the kneeling multitude
to the very gates of Paradise.
And Clovis was as likely to be worked upon by such means as the meanest of
his followers. We must not suppose that the discrepancy between his Christian
profession and his public and private actions, which we discern so clearly, was
equally evident to himself. How should it be so? His own conscience was not
specially enlightened beyond the measure of his age. The bravest warriors of
his nation hailed him as a patriot and hero, and the ministers of God assured
him that his victories were won in the service of Truth and Heaven. It is
always dangerous to judge of the sincerity of men’s religious—perhaps we should
say theological—convictions by the tenor of their moral conduct, and this even
in our own age and nation; but far more so in respect to men of other times and
countries, at a different stage of civilization and religious development, at
which the scale of morality was not only lower, but differently graduated from
our own.
The conscience of a Clovis remained undisturbed in the midst of deeds whose
enormity makes us shudder; and, on the other band, how trivial in our eyes are
some of those offences which loaded him with the heaviest sense of guilt! The
eternal laws of the God of justice and mercy might be broken with impunity; and
what we should call the basest treachery and the most odious cruelty, employed
to compass the destruction of an heretical or pagan enemy; but woe to him who
offended St. Martin, or laid a finger on the property of the meanest of his
servants! When Clovis was seeking to gratify his lust of power, he believed, no
doubt, that he was at the same time fighting under the banner of Christ, and
destroying the enemies of God. And no wonder, for many a priest and bishop
thought the same, and told him what they thought.
We are, however, far from affirming that the political advantages to be
gained from an open avowal of the Catholic Faith at this juncture escaped the
notice of so astute a mind as that of Clovis. No one was more sensible of those
advantages than he was. The immediate consequences were indeed apparently
disastrous. He was himself fearful of the effect which his change of religion
might have upon his Franks, and we are told that many of them left him and
joined his kinsman Ragnarich. But the ill effects,
though immediate, were slight and transient, while the good results went on
accumulating from year to year. In the first place, his baptism into the
Catholic Church conciliated for him the zealous affection of his Gallo-Roman
subjects, whose number and wealth, and, above all, whose superior knowledge and
intelligence, rendered their aid of the utmost value. With respect to his own
Franks, we are justified in supposing that, removed as they were from the
sacred localities with which their faith was intimately connected, they either
viewed the change with indifference, or, wavering between old associations and
present influences, needed only the example of the king to decide their choice,
and induce them to enlist under the banner of the Cross.
The German neighbors of Clovis had either preserved their ancient faith or
adopted the Arian heresy. His conversion therefore was advantageous or
disadvantageous to him, as regarded them, according to the objects he had in
view. Had he really desired to live with his compatriot kings on terms of
equality and friendship, his reception into a hostile Church would certainly
not have furthered his views. But nothing was more foreign to his thoughts than
friendship and alliance with any of the neighboring tribes. His desire was to
reduce them all to a state of subjection to himself. He had the genuine spirit
of the conqueror, which cannot brook the sight of independence; and his keen
intellect and unflinching boldness enabled him to see his advantages and to
turn them to the best account.
Even in those countries in which Heathenism or Arian Christianity
prevailed, there was generally a zealous and united community of Catholic
Christians (including all the Romance inhabitants), who, being outnumbered and
sometimes persecuted, were inclined to look for aid abroad. Clovis became by
his conversion the object of hope and attachment to such a party in almost
every country on the continent of Europe. He had the powerful support of the
whole body of the Catholic clergy, in whose hearts the interests of their
Church far outweighed all other considerations. In other times and lands (in
our own for instance) the spirit of loyalty and the love of country have often
sufficed to counteract the influence of theological opinions, and have made men
patriots in the hour of trial, when their spiritual allegiance to an alien head
tempted them to be traitors. But what patriotism could Gallo-Romans feel, who
for ages had been the slaves of slaves? or what loyalty to barbarian
oppressors, whom they despised as well as feared?
The happy effects of Clovis’s conversion
were not long in showing themselves. In the very next year after that event (AD
497) the Armoricans, inhabiting the country between the Seine and Loire,
who had stoutly defended themselves against the heathen Franks, submitted with
the utmost readiness to the royal convert whom bishops delighted to honor; and
in almost every succeeding struggle the advantages he derived from the
strenuous support of the Catholic party become more and more clearly evident.
STRUGGLE WITH THE VISIGOTHS - BATTLE OF VOUGLÉ
In ad 500 Clovis reduced the Burgundians to a state of semi-dependence,
after a fierce and bloody battle with Gundobald,
their king, at Dijon on the Ousche. In this
conflict, as in almost every other, Clovis attained his ends in a great measure
by turning to account the dissensions of his enemies. Gundobald had
called upon his brother Godegisil, who ruled
over one division of their tribe, to aid him in repelling the attack of the
Franks. The call was answered, in appearance at least; but in the decisive struggle Godegisil, according to a secret understanding, deserted
with all his forces to the enemy. Gundobald was
of course defeated, and submitted to conditions which, however galling to his
pride and patriotism, could not have been very severe, since we find him
immediately afterwards punishing the treachery of his brother, whom be besieged
in the city of Vienne, and put to death in an Arian Church.
The circumstances of the times, rather than the moderation of Clovis,
prevented him from calling Gundobald to
account. A far more arduous struggle was at hand, which needed all the
wily Salian’s resources of power and policy to bring to a successful
issue—the struggle with the powerful king and people of the Visigoths, whose
immediate neighbor he had become after the voluntary submission of the Armoricans in
AD497. The valor and conduct of their renowned king Euric had put the Western
Goths in full possession of all that portion of Gaul which lay between the
rivers Loire and Rhone, together with nearly the whole of Spain. That
distinguished monarch had lately been succeeded by his son Alaric II, who was
now in the flower of youth. It was in the war with this ill-starred prince—the
most difficult and doubtful in which he had been engaged—that Clovis experienced
the full advantages of his recent change of faith. King Euric, who was an
Arian, wise and great as he appears to have been in many respects, had
alienated the affections of multitudes of his people by persecuting the
Catholic minority; and though the same charge does not appear to lie against
Alaric, it is evident that the hearts of his orthodox subjects beat with no
true allegiance towards their heretical king. The baptism of Clovis had turned
their eyes towards him, as one who would not only free them from the
persecution of their theological enemies, but procure for them and their Church
a speedy victory and a secure predominance. The hopes they had formed, and the
aid they were ready to afford him, were not unknown to Clovis, whose eager
rapacity was only checked by the consideration of the part which his
brother-in-law Theoderic, King of the
Ostrogoths, was likely to take in the matter. This great and enlightened Goth,
whose refined magnificence renders the contemptuous sense in which we use the term
Gothic more than usually inappropriate, was ever ready to mediate between
kindred tribes of Germans, whom on every suitable occasion he exhorted to live
in unity, mindful of their common origin. He is said on this occasion to have
brought about a meeting between Clovis and Alaric on a small island in the
Loire in the neighborhood of Amboise. The story is very doubtful, to say the
least. Had he done so much, he would probably have done more, and have shielded
his youthful kinsman with his strong right arm. Whatever he did was done in
vain. The Frankish conqueror knew his own advantages and determined to use them
to the utmost. He received the aid not only of his kinsman Sigebert of Cologne,
who sent an army to his support under Ghararich,
but of the king of the Burgundians, who was also a Catholic. With an army thus
united by a common faith, inspired by religious zeal, and no less so by the
Frankish love of booty, Clovis marched to almost certain victory over an
inexperienced leader and a kingdom divided against itself.
It is evident from the language of Gregory of Tours, that this conflict
between the Franks and Visigoths was regarded by the orthodox party of his own
and preceding ages as a religious war, on which, humanly speaking, the
prevalence of the Catholic or the Arian creed in Western Europe depended.
Clovis did everything in his power to deepen this impression. He could not, he
said, endure the thought that “those Arians” held a part of his beautiful Gaul.
As he passed through the territory of Tours, which was supposed to be under the
peculiar protection of St. Martin, he was careful to preserve the strictest
discipline among his soldiers, that he might further conciliate the Church and
sanctify his undertaking. On his arrival at the city of Tours, he publicly
displayed his reverence for the patron saint, and received the thanks and good
wishes of a whole chorus of priests assembled in St. Martin’s Church. He was
guided (according to one of the legends by which his progress has been so
profusely adorned) through the swollen waters of the river Vienne by “a hind of
wonderful magnitude”; and, as he approached the city of Poitiers, a pillar of
fire (whose origin we may trace, as suits our views, to the favor of heaven or
the treachery of man) shone forth from the cathedral, to give him the assurance
of success, and to throw light upon his nocturnal march. The Catholic bishops
in the kingdom of Alaric were universally favorable to the cause of Clovis, and
several of them, who had not the patience to postpone the manifestation of
their sympathies, were expelled by Alaric from their sees. The majority indeed
made a virtue of necessity, and prayed continually and loudly, if not
sincerely, for their lawful monarch. Perhaps they had even in that age learned
to appreciate the efficacy of mental reservation.
Conscious of his own weakness, Alaric retired before his terrible and
implacable foe, in the vain hope of receiving assistance from the Ostrogoths.
He halted at last in the plains of Vouglé,
behind Poitiers, but even then rather in compliance with the wishes of his
soldiers than from his own deliberate judgment. His soldiers, drawn from a
generation as yet unacquainted with war, and full of that overweening
confidence which results from inexperience, were eager to meet the enemy.
Treachery, also, was at work to prevent him from adopting the only means of
safety, which lay in deferring as long as possible the too unequal contest. The
Franks came on with their usual impetuosity, and with a well-founded confidence
in their own prowess; and the issue of the battle was in accordance with the
auspices on either side. Clovis, no less strenuous in actual fight than wise
and cunning in council, exposed himself to every danger, and fought hand to
hand with Alaric himself. Yet the latter was not slain in the field, but in the
disorderly flight into which the Goths were quickly driven. The victorious
Franks pursued them as far as Bordeaux, where Clovis passed the winter, while
Theodoric, his son, was overrunning Auvergne, Quincy, and Rovergne. The Goths, whose new king was a minor, made no
further resistance; and in the following year the Salian chief took possession
of the royal treasure at Toulouse. He also took the town of Angouleme, at the
capture of which he was doubly rewarded for his services to the Church, for not
only did the inhabitants of that place rise in his favor against the Visigothic
garrison, but the very walls, like those of Jericho, fell down at his approach!
AD 508.
A short time after these events, Clovis received the titles and dignity of
Roman Patricius and Consul from the Greek
Emperor Anastasius; who appears to have been prompted to this act more by
motives of jealousy and hatred towards Theodoric the Ostrogoth, than by any
love he bore the restless and encroaching Frank. The meaning of these obsolete
titles, as applied to those who stood in no direct relation to either division
of the Roman Empire, has never been sufficiently explained. We are at first
surprised that successful warriors and powerful kings like Clovis, Pepin, and
Charlemagne himself, should condescend to accept such empty honors at the hands
of the miserable eunuch-ridden monarchs of the East. That the Byzantine
Emperors should affect a superiority over contemporary sovereigns is intelligible
enough; the weakest idiot among them, who lived at the mercy of his women and
his slaves, had never resigned one title of his pretensions to that universal
empire which an Augustus and a Trajan once possessed. But whence the
acquiescence of Clovis and his great successors in this arrogant assumption? We
may best account for it by remarking how long the prestige of power survives
the strength that gave it. The sun of Rome was set, but the twilight of her
greatness still rested on the world. The German kings and warriors received
with pleasure, and wore with pride, a title which brought them into connection
with that imperial city, of whose universal dominion, of whose skill in arms
and arts, the traces lay everywhere around them.
Nor was it without some solid advantages in the circumstances in which
Clovis was placed. He ruled over a vast population, which had not long ceased
to be subjects of the Empire, and still rejoiced in the Roman name. He fully
appreciated their intellectual superiority, and had already experienced the
value of their assistance. Whatever, therefore, tended to increase his personal
dignity in their eyes (and no doubt the solemn proclamation of his Roman titles
had this tendency) was rightly deemed by him of no small importance.
In the same year that he was invested with the diadem and purple robe in
the church of St. Martin at Tours the encroaching Franks had the southern and
eastern limits of their kingdom marked out for them by the powerful hand of
Theodoric the Great. The brave but peace-loving Goth had trusted too much to
his influence with Clovis, and had hoped to the last to save the unhappy
Alaric, by warning and mediation. The slaughter of the Visigoths, the death of
Alaric himself, the fall of Angouleme and Toulouse, the advance of the Franks
upon the Rhone, where they were now besieging Arles, had effectually undeceived
him. He now prepared to bring forward the only arguments to which the ear of a
Clovis is ever open, the battle-cry of a superior army. His faithful Ostrogoths
were summoned to meet in the month of June, ad 508, and he placed a powerful
army under the command of Eva (Ibba or Hebba), who led his forces into Gaul over the southern
Alps. The Franks and Burgundians, who were investing Arles and Carcassonne,
raised the siege and retired, but whether without or in consequence of a
battle, is rendered doubtful by the conflicting testimony of the annalists.
The subsequent territorial position of the combatants, however, favors the
account that a battle did take place, in which Clovis and his allies received a
most decided and bloody defeat.
The check thus given to the extension of his kingdom at the expense of
other German nations, and the desire perhaps of collecting fresh strength for a
more successful struggle hereafter, seem to have induced Clovis to turn his
attention to the destruction of his Merovingian kindred. The manner in which he
effected his purpose is related with a fullness which naturally excites
suspicion. But though it is easy to detect both absurdity and inconsistency in
many of the romantic details with which Gregory has furnished us, we see no
reason to deny to his statements a foundation of historical truth.
CLOVIS AND HIS KINSMEN.
Clovis was still but one of several Frankish kings; and of these Sigebert
of Cologne, king of the Ripuarians, was little inferior to him in the extent of
his dominions and the number of his subjects. But in other respects—in mental
activity and bodily prowess—“the lame” Sigebert was no match for his Salian
brother. The other Frankish rulers were, Chararich,
of whom mention has been made in connection with Syagrius, and Ragnachar (or Ragnachas),
who held his court at Cambrai. The kingdom of Sigebert extended along both
banks of the Rhine, from Mayence down to
Cologne; to the west along the Moselle as far as Treves; and on the
east to the river Fulda and the borders of Thuringia. The Franks who occupied
this country are supposed to have taken possession of it in the reign of
Valentinian III, when Mayence, Cologne, and
Treves, were conquered by a host of Ripuarians. Sigebert, as we have seen, had
come to the aid of Clovis, in two very important battles with the Alemanni and
the Visigoths, and had shown himself a ready and faithful friend whenever his
co-operation was required. But gratitude was not included among the graces of
the champion of Catholicity, who only waited for a suitable opportunity to
deprive his ally of throne and life. The present juncture was favorable to his
wishes, and enabled him to rid himself of his benefactor in a manner peculiarly
suited to his taste. An attempt to conquer the kingdom of Cologne by force of
arms would have been but feebly seconded by his own subjects, and would have
met with a stout resistance from the Ripuarians, who were conscious of no inferiority
to the Salian tribe. His efforts were therefore directed to the destruction of
the royal house, the downfall of which was hastened by internal divisions.
Clotaire (or Clotarich), the expectant heir of
Sigebert, weary of hope deferred, gave a ready ear to the hellish suggestions
of Clovis, who urged him, by the strongest appeals to his ambition and
cupidity, to the murder of his father. Sigebert was slain by his own son in
the Buchonian Forest near Fulda. The
wretched parricide endeavored to secure the further connivance of his tempter,
by offering him a share of the blood-stained treasure he had acquired. But
Clovis, whose part in the transaction was probably unknown, affected a feeling
of horror at the unnatural crime, and procured the immediate assassination of
Clotaire; an act which rid him of a rival, silenced an embarrassing accomplice,
and tended rather to raise than to lower him in the opinion of the Ripuarians.
It is not surprising, therefore, that when Clovis proposed himself as the
successor of Sigebert, and promised the full recognition of all existing
rights, his offer should be joyfully accepted. In ad 509 he was elected king by
the Ripuarians, and raised upon a shield in the city of Cologne, according to
the Frankish custom, amid general acclamation.
“And thus”, says Gregory of Tours, in the same chapter in which he relates
the twofold murder of his kindred, “God daily prostrated his enemies before him
and increased his kingdom, because he walked before him with an upright heart,
and did what was pleasing in his eyes!”—so completely did his services to the
Catholic Church conceal his moral deformities from the eyes of even the best of
the ecclesiastical historians.
To the destruction of his next victim, Chararich,
whose power was far less formidable than that of Sigebert, he was impelled by
vengeance as well as ambition. That cautious prince, instead of joining the
other Franks in their attack upon Syagrius, had stood aloof and waited upon
fortune. Yet we can hardly attribute the conduct of Clovis towards him chiefly
to revenge, for his most faithful ally had been his earliest victim; and friend
and foe were alike to him, if they did but cross the path of his ambition.
After getting possession of Chararich and
his son, by tampering with their followers, Clovis compelled them to cut off
their royal locks and become priests; subsequently, however, he caused them to
be put to death.
Ragnachar of Cambrai, whose
kingdom lay to the north of the Somme, and extended through Flanders and
Artois, might have proved a more formidable antagonist, had he not become
unpopular among his own subjects by the disgusting licentiousness of his
manners. The account which Gregory gives of the manner in which his ruin was
effected is more curious than credible, and adds the charge of swindling to the
black list of crimes recorded against the man who “walked before God with an
upright heart”. According to the historian, Clovis bribed the followers
of Ragnachar with armour of
gilded iron, which they mistook, as he intended they should, for gold. Having
thus crippled by treachery the strength of his enemy, Clovis led an army over
the Somme, for the purpose of attacking him in his own territory. Ragnachar prepared to meet him, but was betrayed by
his own soldiers and delivered into the hands of the invader. Clovis, with
facetious cruelty, reproached the fallen monarch for having disgraced their
common family by suffering himself to be bound, and then split his skull with
an axe. The same absurd charge was brought against Richar,
the brother of Ragnachar, and the same
punishment inflicted on him. A third brother was put to death at Mans
Gregory refers, though not by name, to other kings of the same family, who
were all destroyed by Clovis. “Having killed many other kings”, he says, “who
were his kinsmen, because he feared they might deprive him of his power, he
extended his kingdom through the whole of Gaul”. He also tells us that the
royal hypocrite, having summoned a general assembly, complained before it, with
tears in his eyes, that he was “alone in the world”. “Alas, for me!” he said,
“I am left as an alien among strangers, and have no relations who can assist
me”. This he did, according to Gregory, “not from any real love of his kindred,
or from remorse at the thought of his crimes, but that he might find out any
more relations and put them also to death”.
Clovis died at Paris, in AD 511, in the forty-fifth year
of his age and the thirtieth of his active, bloodstained, and eventful reign.
He lived therefore only five years after the decisive battle of Vouglé.
Did we not know, from the judgment he passes on other characters in his
history, that Gregory of Tours was capable of appreciating the nobler and
gentler qualities of our nature, we might easily imagine, as we read what he
says of Clovis, that, Christian bishop as he was, he had an altogether
different standard of right and wrong from ourselves. Not a single virtuous or
generous action has the panegyrist found to record of his favored hero, while
all that he does relate of him tends to deepen our conviction that this
favorite of Heaven, in whose behalf miracles were freely worked, whom departed
saints led on to victory, and living ministers of God delighted to honor, was
quite a phenomenon of evil in the moral world, from his combining in himself
the opposite and apparently incompatible vices of the meanest treachery, and
the most audacious wickedness.
We can only account for this amazing obliquity of moral vision in such a
man as Gregory, by ascribing it to the extraordinary value attached in those
times (and would that we could say in those times only) to external acts of
devotion, and to every service rendered to the Roman Church. If, in far happier
ages than those of which we speak, the most polluted consciences have purchased
consolation and even hope, by building churches, endowing monasteries, and
paying reverential homage to the dispensers of God’s mercy, can we wonder that
the extraordinary services of a Clovis to Catholic Christianity should cover
even his foul sins as with a cloak of snow?
He had, indeed, without the slightest provocation, deprived a noble and
peaceable neighbor of his power and life. He had treacherously murdered his
royal kindred, and deprived their children of their birthright. He had on all
occasions shown himself the heartless ruffian, the greedy conqueror, the bloodthirsty
tyrant; but by his conversion he had led the Roman Church from the Scylla
and Charybdis of Heresy and Paganism, planted it on a rock in the
very centre of Europe, and fixed its
doctrines and traditions in the hearts of the conquerors of the West.
Other reasons, again, may serve to reconcile the politician to his memory.
The importance of the task which he performed (though from the basest motives),
and the influence of his reign on the destinies of Europe can hardly be
overrated. He founded the monarchy on a firm and enduring basis. He leveled,
with a strong though bloody hand, the barriers which separated Franks from
Franks, and consolidated a number of isolated and hostile tribes into a
powerful and united nation. It is true, indeed, that this unity was soon
disturbed by divisions of a different nature; yet the idea of its feasibility
and desirableness was deeply fixed in the national mind; a return to it was
often aimed at, and sometimes accomplished.
II.
FROM THE DEATH OF CLOVIS TO THE DEATH OF CLOTHAIRE I
AD 511—561.
There can be
no stronger evidence of the strength and consistency which the royal authority
had attained in the hands of Clovis, than the peaceful and undisputed
succession of his sons to the vacant throne. It would derogate from our opinion
of the political sagacity of Clovis, were we to attribute to his personal
wishes the partition of his kingdom among his four sons. We have no account,
moreover, of any testamentary dispositions made by him to this effect, and are
justified in concluding that the division took place in accordance with the
general laws of inheritance which then prevailed among the Germans. However
clearly he may have foreseen the disastrous consequences of destroying the
unity which it had been one object of his life to effect, his posthumous
influence would hardly have sufficed to reconcile his younger sons to their own
exclusion, supported as they would naturally be by the national sympathy in
the unusual hardship of their lot.
Of the four sons of Clovis, Theoderic (Dietrich,
Thierry), Clodomir,
Childebert, and Clotar (Clotaire),
the eldest, who was then probably about twenty-four years of age, was the son
of an unknown mother, and the rest, the offspring of the Burgundian princess
Clotilda. The first use they made of the royal power which had descended to
them was to divide the empire into four parts; in which division, though
Gregory describes them as sharing ‘aequa lance’,
the eldest son appears to have had the lion’s share. We should in vain endeavor
to understand the principles on which this partition was made, and it is no
easy matter to mark the limits of the several kingdoms. Theodoric, King of
Austrasia (or Metz), for example, obtained the whole of the Frankish
territories which bordered on the Rhine, and also some provinces in the south
of Gaul. His capital cities were Metz and Rheims, from the former of which his
kingdom took its name. Clodomir had
his residence at Orleans, Childebert at Paris, and Clotaire at Soissons; and
these three cities were considered as the capitals of the three divisions of
the empire over which they ruled.
The exact position and limits of their respective territories cannot be
defined with any certainty, but we may fairly surmise, from the position of the
towns above mentioned, that the middle part of Neustria belonged to the kingdom
of Paris, the southern part to Orleans, and the north-eastern to Soissons.
The kingdom of Theodoric, as will be seen by a reference to the map,
corresponded in a great measure with the region subsequently called Austrasia
(Eastern Land) in contradistinction to Neustria, which included the more
recently acquired possessions of the Franks. These terms are so frequently used
in the subsequent history, and the distinction they denote was so strongly
marked and has been so permanent, that an explanation of them cannot but be
useful to the reader.
It is conjectured by Luden,
with great probability, that the Ripuarians were originally called the Eastern
people to distinguish them from the Salian Franks who lived to the west. But
when the old home of the conquerors on the right bank of the Rhine was united
with their new settlements in Gaul, the latter, as it would seem, were called
Neustria or Neustrasia (New
Lands); while the term Austrasia came to denote the original seats of the
Franks, on what we now call the German bank of the Rhine. The most important
difference between them (a difference so great as to lead to their permanent
separation into the kingdoms of France and Germany by the treaty of Verdun) was
this, that in Neustria the Frankish element was quickly absorbed by the mass of
Gallo-Romanism by which it was surrounded; while in Austrasia, which included
the ancient seats of the Frankish conquerors, the German element was wholly
predominant.
The import of the word Austrasia (Austria, Austrifrancia) is very fluctuating. In its widest
sense it was used to denote all the countries incorporated into the Frankish
Empire, or even held in subjection to it, in which the German language and
population prevailed; in this acceptation it included therefore the territory
of the Alemanni, Bavarians, Thuringians, and even that of the Saxons and Frises. In its more common and
proper sense it meant that part of the territory of the Franks themselves which
was not included in Neustria. It was subdivided into Upper Austrasia on
the Moselle, and Lower Austrasia on the Rhine
and Meuse.
Neustria (or, in the fullness of the Monkish Latinity, Neustrasia) was bounded on the
north by the ocean, on the south by the Loire, and on the southwest towards
Burgundy by a line which, beginning below Gien on the Loire, ran through the
rivers Loing and Yonne, not far from their sources, and passing north of
Auxerre and south of Troyes, joined the river Aube above Arcis. The western boundary line
again by which Neustria was separated from Austrasia, commencing at the river
Aube, crossed the Marne to the east of Chateau Thierry, and passing through the
rivers Aisne and Oise, and round the sources of the Somme, left Cambrai on the
east, and reached the Scheldt, which it followed to its mouth.
The tide of conquest had not reached its height at the death of Clovis.
Even in that marauding age the Franks were conspicuous among the German races
for their love of warlike adventure; and the union of all their different
tribes under one martial leader, who kept them almost perpetually in the field,
gave them a strength which none of their neighbors were able to resist. The
partition of the kingdom afforded indeed a favorable opportunity to the
semi-dependent states of throwing off the yoke which Clovis had imposed; but
neither the Burgundians nor the Visigoths were in a condition to make the
attempt, and Theodoric, the powerful king of the Ostrogoths, was too much
occupied by his quarrel with the Greek Emperor to take advantage of the death
of Clovis. Under these circumstances the Franks, so far from losing ground,
were enabled to extend the limits of their empire and more firmly to establish
their supremacy.
The power of Theodoric the Great prevented Clovis from completing the
conquest of Burgundy, and its rulers regained before his death a virtual
independence of the Franks. The sons of Clovis only wanted a favorable
opportunity for finishing the work which their father had begun, and for
changing the merely nominal subjection of Burgundy into absolute dependence.
And here again it was internal dissension which prepared the way for the
admission of the foreign enemy.
Gundobald, King of Burgundy, died in 517,
leaving two sons, Sigismund and Godomar, as joint
successors to his throne. The former of these had married Ostrogotha, a daughter of
Theodoric the Great, by whom he had one son, Sigeric.
On the death of Ostrogotha,
Sigismund took as his second wife a person of low and even menial condition,
who pursued the son of the former queen with all the hatred popularly ascribed
to stepmothers. Gregory relates that the boy increased the bitterness of her
feelings against him by reproaching her for appearing on some solemn occasion
in the robe and ornaments of his high-born mother. The new queen sought to
revenge herself by exciting the jealousy of her husband against his son. She
secretly accused Sigeric of engaging in a plot to
obtain the crown for himself and represented him as having been moved to this
dangerous and unnatural enterprise by the hopes he cherished of receiving aid
from his mighty grandfather. This last suggestion found but too ready an
entrance into the heart of Sigismund, and so completely poisoned for the time
its natural springs, that he ordered Sigeric to be
put to death. Inevitable remorse came quickly, yet too late, and the wretched
king buried himself in the monastery of St. Maurice, and sought to atone for
his fearful crime by saying masses day and night for the soul of his murdered
son.
In the meantime Clotilda, the widow of Clovis, herself a Burgundian
princess, who had lived in retirement at the church of St. Martin since her
husband’s death, did all in her power to rouse her sons to take vengeance on
her cousin Sigismund. It is difficult to conjecture the source of the feeling
which thus disturbed her holy meditations in the cloisters of St. Martin’s, and
filled her heart with schemes of revenge and bloodshed. We can hardly attribute
her excitement on this occasion to a keen sense of the cruelty and injustice
which Sigeric had suffered. The wife of Clovis must
have been too well inured to treachery and blood to be greatly moved by the
murder of her second cousin. Some writers have found sufficient explanation of
her conduct in the fact that her own father and mother had been put to death in
492 by Gundobald, the father of Sigismund. But we
know that when Gundobald was defeated by Clovis he
obtained easy terms, nor was the murder of Clothilda’ parents brought against him on that
occasion. It is not likely that a thirst for vengeance which such an injury
might naturally excite, after remaining unslaked in
the heart of Clothilda for
nearly thirty years, should have revived with increased intensity on account of
a murder committed by one of the hated race upon his own kinsman. A more
probable motive is suggested by a passage in Gregory of Tours, in which he
informs us that Theodoric of Metz had married Suavegotta a daughter of Sigismund of
Burgundy. Theodoric, as we have said, was the eldest son of Clovis, by an
unknown mother, and was evidently the most warlike and powerful of the four
Frankish kings. A union between her stepson and the Burgundian dynasty might
seem to Clotilda to threaten the welfare and safety of her own sons, to whom
her summons to arms appears to have been most particularly addressed. Theodoric
took no part in the present war; and on a subsequent occasion, when invited
by Clodomir to
join him in an expedition against the Burgundians, he positively refused.
The sons of Clotilda, happy in being able to obey their mother's wishes
in a manner so gratifying to their own inclinations, made a combined attack
upon Burgundy in 523. Sigismund and Godomar his
brother, were defeated, and the former, having been given up to the conquerors
by his own followers, was carried prisoner to Orleans; the latter escaped and
assumed the reins of government in Burgundy. The Franks, like all barbarians of
that age, found it more easy to conquer a province than to keep it. In the very
same year, on the retreat of the Frankish army, Godomar was able to retake all the towns which had been surrendered to the Franks, and
to possess himself of his late brother’s kingdom.
Clodomir renewed
the invasion in the following year. Before his departure he determined to put
the captive Sigismund, with his wife and children, to death; nor could the bold
intercession of the Abbot Avitus, who threatened him with a like calamity,
deter him from his bloody purpose. His answer to the abbot is highly naive. “It
seems to me”, he said, “a foolish piece of advice to leave some enemies at home
while I am marching against others, so that, with the former in the rear and
the latter in front, I may rush between the two wedges of my enemies. Victory
will be better and more easily obtained by separating one from the other”. In
accordance with this better plan, he caused his captives to be put to death
at Columna near
Orleans, and thrown into a well. After thus securing “his rear”, he
marched against the Burgundians. In the battle which took place on the plain
of Veferonce near
Vienne, Clodomir was
deceived by a feigned retreat of the Burgundian army, and, having been carried
in the impetuosity of his pursuit into the midst of the enemy, he was
recognized by the royal length of his hair and slain on the field of battle.
The loss of their leader, however, instead of causing a panic among the
Franks, inspired them with irresistible fury; they quickly routed the Burgundians,
and, after devastating their country with indiscriminate slaughter, compelled
them once more to submission. Yet it was not until after a third invasion that
Burgundy was finally reduced to the condition of a Frankish province, and even
then it retained its own laws and customs; the only marks of subjection
consisting in an annual tribute and the liability to serve the Frankish king in
his wars.
On the death of Clodomir,
his territories were divided among the three remaining kings; and Clotaire, the
youngest of them, married the widowed queen Guntheuca. The children of Clodomir, being still young, appear to have been
taken no notice of in the partition : they found an asylum with their
grandmother Clothilda.
While his half-brothers were enlarging the Frankish frontier towards the
south-east, Theodoric, who had declined to join in the attack upon Burgundy,
was directing his attention towards Thuringia, which he ultimately added to the
kingdom of Austrasia. The accession of the Thuringians to the Frankish Empire
was the more important because they inhabited those ancient seats from which
the Franks themselves had gone forth to the conquest of Gaul, and because it
served to give additional strength to the Austrasian kingdom, in which the German element prevailed.
The fall of Thuringia is traced by the historian to the ungovernable
passions of one of the female sex, which plays so prominent a part in the
history of these times.
About AD 528, this kingdom was governed by three
princes, Baderic, Hermenfried and Berthar, the second of whom had the high honor, as
it was naturally considered, of espousing Amalaberg, the niece of Theodoric the Great. The
‘happy Thuringia’, however, derived anything but advantage from the
‘inestimable treasure’ which, according to her uncle's account of her, it
acquired in the Ostrogothic princess. This lady was not unconscious of the
dignity she derived from her august relative, and fretted within the narrow
limits of the fraction of a petty kingdom. Gregory tells us a singular story of
the manner in which she marked her contempt of the possessions of her husband,
and at the same time betrayed her ambitious desires. On returning home one
day to a banquet, Hermenfried observed that a part of
the table had no cloth upon it; and when he inquired of the queen the reason of
this unusual state of things, she told him that it became a king who was
despoiled of the centre of his kingdom to have the
middle of his table bare. Excited by the suggestions of his queen, Hermenfried determined to destroy his brothers, and made
secret overtures to Theoderic of
Austrasia, to whom he promised a portion of his expected acquisitions on
condition of receiving aid. Theodoric gladly consented, and, in conjunction
with Hermenfried, defeated and slew both Baderic and Berthar (Werther).
A man who, to serve his ambition, had not shrunk from a double
fratricide, was not likely to be very scrupulous in observing his engagements
to a mere ally. He entirely forgot his promise to Theodoric and kept the whole
of Thuringia to himself. He relied for impunity on his connection with the
royal house of the Ostrogoths, his alliance with the Heruli and Warni, and the great increase of his strength in
Thuringia itself. But with all these advantages he was no match for Theoderic of Austrasia and
his warlike subjects. The death of the latter’s great namesake removed the only
obstacle which had prevented the Franks from attacking Thuringia.
In 530 the Austrasian king summoned his warlike
subjects to march against Hermenfried; and, in order
to make the ground of quarrel as general as possible, he expatiated to them on
some imaginary cruelties committed by the Thuringians upon their countrymen.
“Revenge”, said he, “I pray you, both the injury done to me, and the
death of your own fathers; remembering that the Thuringians formerly fell with
violence upon our ancestors, and inflicted many evils upon them, when they had
given hostages and were desirous of making peace; but the Thuringians destroyed
these hostages in various ways, and having invaded the territory of our
forefathers, robbed them of all their property, hung up young men by the sinews
of their legs, and destroyed more than 200 maidens by a most cruel death”. The
enumeration of all these horrors ends with some degree of bathos: “But now Hermenfried has cheated me of what he promised”.
The Franks, who required no very powerful oratory to induce them to
undertake an expedition in which there was prospect of plunder, unanimously
declared for war; and Theodoric, in company with his son Theudebert and his brother Clotaire of Soissons, marched into Thuringia. The inhabitants
endeavored to protect themselves from the superior cavalry of the invaders by a
stratagem similar to that employed by Robert Bruce at Bannockburn, by digging small
holes in front of their own line. They were, however, compelled to retreat to
the river Unstrut in
Saxon Prussia, where they made a stand, but were defeated with immense carnage,
so that the river “was choked with dead bodies, which served as a bridge for
the invaders”. The whole country was quickly reduced and permanently
incorporated with Austrasia. And thus, after a long interval, the Franks
repossessed themselves of the ancient homes of their tribe, and by one great
victory established themselves in the very heart of Germany, which the Romans
from the same quarter had often, but vainly, endeavored to do.
The growing separation between the German and Romance elements in the
Frankish Empire, as represented by Theodoric, King of Metz, on the one side, and
his half-brother, on the other, becomes more and more evident as our history
proceeds. While the sons of Clothilda were
associated in almost every undertaking, Theodoric frequently stood aloof, in a
manner which shows that his connection with them was by no means of the same
kind as theirs with each other. The conquest of the purely German Thuringia,
was undertaken by Theodoric exclusively on his own account and in reliance on
his own resources. Clotaire indeed accompanied him in his expedition against that
country, but in all probability without any military force, nor does he appear
to have put in any claim to a share of the conquered territory. The subjugation
of Burgundy, on the other hand, in which the Romance language and manners had
acquired the ascendancy, was the work of Clotaire and Childebert alone.
Theodoric was invited to join them, but refused on the ground of his
connection with the King of Burgundy. Whatever may have been his reason for
declining so tempting an invitation, it was certainly not want of support from
his subjects, for we are told that they were highly irritated by his refusal,
and mutinously declared that they would march without him. Yet he adhered to
his determination not to join his brothers, and pacified the wrath of his soldiers
by leading them against the Arverni, in whose country they committed the most
frightful ravages, undismayed by several astounding miracles!
An inroad had been previously made upon the Arverni, by Childebert,
while Theodoric was still in Thuringia. Childebert had suddenly broken off from
the prosecution of this war, and turned his arms against Amalaric, King of the
Visigoths, who still retained a portion of Southern Gaul. This monarch had
married Clothildis, a daughter of Clovis, from
motives of interest and dread of the Frankish power; but appears to have thrown
aside his fears, and with them his conciliating policy, on the death of his
great father-in-law. We are told that Clothildis suffered the greatest indignities at the hands of Amalaric and his Arian
subjects for her faithful adherence to the Catholic Church. Where religious
predilections are concerned, it is necessary to receive the accounts of the
dealings between the Franks and their Arian neighbors with the utmost caution.
Few will believe that the object of Childebert’s march was solely to avenge his sister’s wrongs; but the mention of them by the
historian seems to indicate that the invasion was made in reliance upon
Catholic support among the subjects of Amalaric himself. The sudden resolution
of Childebert (taken probably on the receipt of important intelligence from the
country of the Visigoths), the rapid progress and almost uniform success of the
Franks, all point to the same conclusion, that the Catholic party in Southern
Gaul was in secret understanding with the invaders. Amalaric was defeated and
slain in the first encounter, and the whole of his Gallic possessions, with the
exception of Septimania, was incorporated without
further resistance with the Frankish Empire. The Visigoths, with their wives
and children, retired into Spain under their new king Theudis.
Theoderic, King of
Austrasia, died in 534, after having added largely to the Frankish dominions,
and was succeeded by his son Theudebert. An attempt
on the part of his uncles Childebert and Clotaire to deprive him of his kingdom
and his life was frustrated by the fidelity of his Austrasian
subjects. How venial and almost natural such a conspiracy appeared in that age,
even to him who was to have been the victim of it, may be inferred from the
fact that Theudebert and Childebert became soon
afterwards close friends and allies. The latter, having no children, adopted
his nephew, whose life he had so lately sought, as the heir to his dominions,
and loaded him with the richest presents. In 537 these two princes made a
combined attack upon Clotaire, who was only saved from destruction by the
intercession of his mother. That pious princess passed a whole night in prayer
at the sepulcher of St. Martin, and Gregory tells us that the result of her
devotions—a miraculous shower of enormous hailstones—brought his cruel kinsmen
to reason!
The Empire of the Franks was soon after extended in a direction in which
they had hitherto found an insurmountable barrier to their progress. On the
death of Theodoric the Great, or, as he is called in song and legend, “Dietrich
of Bern”, the scepter which he had borne with such grace and vigor passed into
the hands of an infant and a woman. The young and beautiful Amalasuintha,
daughter of Theodoric by the sister of Clovis, and widow of Eutharic,
exercised the royal authority in the name of her son Athalaric; and when the
latter, prematurely exhausted by vicious habits, followed his mighty
grandfather to the grave in 532, she made Theodatus, son of Amalafrida,
the sister of Theodoric, her associate in the royal power. The benefit was
basely repaid. Theodatus procured the murder of the unhappy queen to whom he
owed his advancement, and thus drew down upon himself and his country the
vengeance of all who were desirous of dismembering the Empire of the Ostrogoths.
Religious animosities, which it had been the policy of the Arian but
tolerant Theodoric to sooth by the even-handed justice of his administration,
broke forth with destructive fury under his feeble successors. The Roman
subjects of Theodoric’s empire had not lost the pride, although they had
degenerated from the valor, of their ancestors, and had never ceased to think
it shame and sin to be ruled by a barbarian monarch, and that monarch, too, a
heretic. They would gladly have consented to forget their former jealousies,
and to unite themselves with the Eastern Empire, especially when a temporary
gleam of life was thrown over its corrupt and dying frame by the vigorous
administration of Justinian. But, if it were the will of Heaven that they
should yield to a new and more vigorous race, they wished at least to have an
orthodox master, who would not merely protect their religious freedom, but
agree with their theological opinions. Their choice therefore lay between
Justinian and the Franks, who were ever watching their opportunity to turn the
errors and divisions of their neighbors to their own account. Justinian was the
first to move; and, under the pretext of avenging the death of Amalasuintha, he sent his celebrated general Belisarius to
attack Theodatus. The Franks beheld with joy the approaching struggle between
their two mightiest rivals, and prepared to take the advantageous position of
umpires.
Both Justinian and Theodatus were aware that the Franks could turn the
scale in favor of either party, and both made the greatest efforts to
conciliate their aid. Justinian appealed to their natural enmity against
heretics and Goths, but deemed it necessary to quicken their national and
theological antipathies by a large present of money, and still larger promises.
The Franks received the money and promised the desired assistance the more
readily, as they felt themselves aggrieved by the murder of a niece of Clovis.
Theodatus, on the other hand, hearing that Belisarius was already on his way to
Sicily, endeavored to ward off the attack of the Franks by offering them the
Gothic possessions in Gaul and 2000 pounds’ weight of gold. The Franks were
dazzled by the splendor of the bribe, but Theodatus died before the bargain was
completed. His general Vitisges, who was elected to
succeed him, called a council of the chiefs of the Ostrogothic nation, and was
strongly urged by them to fulfill the promises of Theodatus, and by sacrificing
a portion of the empire to secure the rest. “In all other respects”, they said,
“we are well prepared; but the Franks, our ancient enemies, are an obstacle in
our path”.
The imminent peril in which Vitisges stood
rendered the sacrifice inevitable, and the whole of the Ostrogothic possessions
in Gaul which lay between the Rhone, the Alps, and the Mediterranean, as well
as that part of Rhaetia which Theodoric the Great had given to the Alemanni
after their defeat by Clovis, were transferred in full sovereignty to the
Franks. The Merovingian kings, regardless of their former promises to
Justinian, divided the land and money among themselves and promised their venal
but efficient support to the king of Italy. They stipulated, however, out of
delicacy to the Greek Emperor, that they should not march in person against
Belisarius, but should be allowed to send the subject Burgundians, or at all
events to permit them to go. This seasonable reinforcement enabled the
Ostrogoths to sack and plunder Milan, in which exploit they received the
willing assistance of the Burgundians.
In the following year, 539, Theudebert himself, excited perhaps by the alluring accounts he had heard of the booty
taken by his subjects in Italy, marched across the Alps at the head of 100,000
men. Vitisges and his Goths had every reason to
suppose that Theudebert came to succor them, but
Belisarius on his part hoped much from the long feud between Goth and Frank. Theudebert determined in his own way to be impartial. He
had promised to aid both parties, and he had promised to make war on both;
and he kept his word by attacking both, driving them from the field of battle,
and plundering their camps with the greatest impartiality. A letter of
remonstrance from Belisarius would probably have had little weight in inducing Theudebert to return, as he did soon afterwards, had it not
been backed by the murmurs of the Franks themselves, who were suffering from an
insufficient supply of food, and had lost nearly one third of their numbers by
dysentery.
Though our principal attention will be directed to the actions of the Austrasian king, we may briefly refer in this place to a
hostile incursion into Spain, made by Childebert and Clotaire, in 542. On this
occasion the town of Saragossa is represented by Gregory as having been taken,
not by the sword and battle-axe of the Franks, but by the holy tunic of
St. Vincentius, borne
by an army of women, clothed in black mantles, with their hair disheveled and
sprinkled with penitential ashes. The heretical Goths no sooner caught sight of
the tunic, and heard the first notes of the holy hymns which were sung by the
female besiegers, than they fled in terror from their city, and left it to be
plundered by the advancing Franks.
As the object of this invasion was simply predatory, the Franks soon
after retired into Gaul with immense booty, and the Goths resumed possession of
their devastated country.
While Italy was distracted by war, and with difficulty defending itself
from the attacks of Belisarius, Theudebert took
possession of several towns which bordered upon Burgundy and Rhaetia. Bucelinus, the Duke of
Alemannia, who fought in the army of Theudebert, is
said by Gregory to have conquered Lesser Italy, by which he no doubt meant
Liguria and Venetia. These provinces were added to the Frankish dominions, the
Ostrogoths only retaining Brescia and Verona.
The cession of territory made to the Franks by Vitisges as described above, was ratified by the Emperor Justinian; and, as a further
proof of the growing influence of the Merovingian kings, we may state, that in
540 they presided at the games which were celebrated in the circus of Aries,
and caused coins of gold to be struck, bearing their own image instead of that
of the Roman emperor.
THE BAVARIANS.
It is about this period that the Bavarians first become known in history
as tributaries of the Franks; but at what time they became so is matter of
dispute. From the previous silence of the annalists respecting this people, we
may perhaps infer that both they and the Swabians remained independent until
the fall of the Ostrogothic Empire in Italy. The Gothic dominions were bounded
on the north by Rhaetia and Noricum; and between these countries and the
Thuringians, who lived still further to the north, was the country of the
Bavarians and Swabians. Thuringia had long been possessed by the Franks,
Rhaetia was ceded by Vitisges, King of Italy, and
Venetia was conquered by Theudebert. The Bavarians ere
therefore, at this period, almost entirely surrounded by the Frankish
territories, in which position, considering the relative strength of either
party, and the aggressive and unscrupulous spirit of the stronger, it was not
possible that the weaker should preserve its independence. Whenever they may
have first submitted to the yoke, it is certain that at the time of Theudebert’s death, or
shortly after that event, both Bavarians and Swabians (or Alemannians), had become
subjects of the Merovingian kings. And thus, in the middle of the sixth
century, and only sixty years from the time when Clovis sallied forth from his
petty principality to attack Syagrius, the Frankish kingdom attained to its
utmost territorial greatness, and was bounded by the Pyrenees and the Alps on
the south, and on the north by the Saxons, more impassable than either.
Theudebert died in AD 547
and was succeeded by his son Theodebald, a sickly and
weak-spirited boy, of whose brief and inglorious reign there is little to
relate. He died in AD 553, of some disease inherent in his
constitution, leaving no children behind him. His kingdom therefore reverted to
his great uncles Childebert and Clotaire, the former of whom was a feeble and
childless old man, while the latter, to use the language of Agathias, “had only contracted
his first wrinkles”, and was blessed with four high-spirited and warlike sons.
Under these circumstances, Clotaire considered it safe to claim the whole of
his deceased nephew’s kingdom; and declared that it was useless to divide it
with Childebert, whose own possessions must shortly fall to himself and his
sons. To strengthen his claims still further, he married Vultetrada,
the widow of Theodebald and daughter of Wacho, king of the Longobards.
For some reason or other (but hardly from their objection to polygamy, since
Clotaire had actually had at least five wives, not all of whom could be dead),
the Christian bishops strongly opposed this marriage. It is not improbable that
the fear of false doctrine may have influenced them more than the dread of
immorality, and that their opposition in this case, as in many subsequent ones,
was founded upon the fact that the new queen belonged to an Arian family.
CLOTAIRE DEFEATED BY
THE SAXONS.
In the same year in which Theodebald died,
Clotaire, King of Soissons, was involved in serious hostilities with the
Saxons, the only German tribe whom the Franks could neither conquer nor
overawe. In AD 555, when forced into a battle with the Saxons
at Deutz, by the overweening confidence of his followers, who even threatened
him with death in case of noncompliance, he received a decisive and bloody
defeat, and the Saxons freed themselves from a small tribute, which they had
hitherto paid to the Austrasians. The kindred
Merovingians never lost an opportunity of injuring one another, and Childebert,
taking advantage of his brother’s distress, not only urged on the Saxons to
repeat their incursions, but harbored and made common cause with Chramnus, the rebellious and exiled son of Clotaire. The war
which was thus begun, continued till the death of Childebert in AD 558,
when Clotaire took immediate possession of the kingdom of Paris.
Chramnus, having lost his powerful ally,
was obliged to submit, and appears to have been in some sort forgiven. In a short
time, however, he revolted again, and fled for refuge to Chonober,
Count of the Britons, who, since their voluntary submission to Clovis, had
remained in a state of semidependence on
the Franks. Chonober received him with open arms, and
raised an army to support his cause, forgetful, or regardless, of the obedience
which he nominally owed to the Frankish king. Conscious of his inability to
meet Clotaire in the open field, he proposed to Chramnus that they should attack his father in the night. To this, however, the
rebellious son, half repentant perhaps, “virtute Dei proeventus” would by no means consent. Chonober had gone too far to recede, even had he wished to
do so, and on the following morning the two armies engaged.
Clotaire, though cruel and licentious, even for a Merovingian, was
evidently a favorite of Gregory of Tours, who represents him as marching to
meet his son like another David against another Absalom. “Look down”, he
prayed, “0 Lord, from heaven, and judge my cause, for I am undeservedly
suffering wrong at the hands of my son; pass the same judgment as of old
between Absalom and his father David”. “Therefore”, continues the historian,
“when the armies met, the Count of the Britons turned and fled, and was killed
upon the field of battle”. Chramnus had prepared
vessels to escape by sea; but in the delay occasioned by his desire to save his
family he was overtaken by the troops of Clotaire, and, by his father’s orders,
was burned alive with wife and children.
The perusal of that part of Gregory’s great work, from which we are now
quoting, affords us another curious insight into the condition of the Christian
Church in an age which some are found to look back to as one of peculiar purity
and zeal. The historian has related to us in full and precise terms the
several enormities of which Clotaire was guilty; how he slew with his own hand
the children of his brother, in the presence of the weeping Clothildis,
and under circumstances of peculiar atrocity; how he forced the wives of
murdered kings into a hateful alliance with himself; how he not only put his
own son to a cruel death, but extended his infernal malice to the latter
unoffending wife and children. And yet the learned, and, as we have reason to
believe, exemplary bishop of the Christian Church, in the very same
chapter in which he relates the death of Chramnus,
represents the monster as having gained a victory by the special aid of God! In
the following chapter, he also relates to us the manner in which Clotaire made
his peace with heaven before his death.
In the fifty-first year of his reign, he sought the threshold of the
blessed Martin of Tours, bringing with him many gifts. Having approached the
sepulcher of a certain priest, he made a full confession of “the acts of
negligence” of which he had, perhaps, been guilty, and prayed with many groans
that the blessed confessor would procure him the mercy of the Lord, and by his
intercession obliterate the memory of all that he had done irrationally. He
died of a fever at Compiegne in AD 561.
At the death of Childebert, in AD 558,
Clotaire had become sole monarch of the Franks and Lord paramount of the
several affiliated and dependent states, which, though subject to his military
ban, maintained themselves in a great degree of independence of action, and
required the constant application of force to keep them to their allegiance.
This union of so vast an empire under a single head, the result of accidental
circumstances conspiring to favor the efforts of personal ambition, was of no
long continuance. Its importance to the nation at large was little understood,
and the equal claim of all the sons in a family to succeed to the dignity, and
share the possessions of the father was, as we have said, founded on the
general customs of the nation.
III
FROM THE DEATH OF CLOTAIRE TO THE DEATH OF BRUNHILDA.
At the death of Clotaire, his vast empire was divided among his four
sons in such a manner that two of them inherited kingdoms in which the
population was chiefly German, and the other two received the states in which
the Romance element very greatly
predominated. Charibert succeeded to the kingdom of Paris, formerly held by
Childebert; Guntram to that of Orleans with Burgundy,
the former portion of Chlodomir; Chilperic,
who at his father’s death had seized the royal treasures and endeavored to take
possession of the whole empire, was compelled to rest satisfied with Soissons;
and Sigebert received Austrasia, the least attractive and civilized, but
certainly the soundest and most powerful division of the empire. His
capital was Rheims or Metz.
The first-mentioned of these princes (Charibert), who is personally
remarkable for little else than the number of his wives, is interesting to us
as the father of Bertha or Adalberga, who married and
converted Ethelbert, the King of Kent. Charibert died in AD 567;
and when his dominions were partitioned among his three brothers, Sigebert
received that portion which was most purely German in its population, and thus
united all the German provinces under one head. It was agreed on this occasion
that Paris, which was rising into great importance, should be held in common by
all, but visited by none of the three kings without the consent of the others.
Almost immediately after his accession to the throne of Rheims (or Metz),
Sigebert, the most warlike of the three brothers, was obliged to lead his
Franks into action with the Avars or Huns, who in AD 562
endeavored to force their way into Gaul. They appear to have ascended by the
Danube; but leaving that river, they marched towards the Elbe, and fell with
great fury upon Thuringia. It was on the latter river that Sigebert engaged and
defeated them. In AD 566, they renewed their attacks, and,
according to Gregory, deceived the Franks with magic arts and delusive
appearances, by which we may be permitted to understand some kind of military
stratagem. Whether by fair means or by foul, the Franks were defeated, and
their brave leader fell into the hands of the enemy. He succeeded, however, in
purchasing his own freedom and a lasting peace.
Sigebert seems also to have come into conflict with those universal
troublers of the peace of Europe, the marauding Danes and Saxons. Reference is
made by the poet Fortunatus to a victory
gained over this people by Sigebert’s general
Lupus, who is said to have driven them from the Wupper to the Lahn.
The few records we possess of these encounters are, however, far too meager to
afford us the means of watching the struggle with these new and terrible
enemies.
SIGEBERT MARRIES BRUNHILDA.
Though Sigebert was an active and warlike prince, his name is far less
prominent in the succeeding history than that of his queen Brunhilda,—a woman
renowned for her beauty, talents, birth, and commanding influence, for the long
and successful struggle carried on with her perfidious rival Fredegunda, and no
less so for her intrigues, her extraordinary adventures, the cruel insults to
which she was subjected at the hands of her enemies, and lastly for her most
horrible death. Sigebert sought her hand from an honorable motive, and
there was nothing in the auspices which attended her union with him which could
have prepared her for a long life of unceasing conflict and suffering, and a
painful and ignominious end.
The rude and violent character displayed by so many successive generations
of the Merovingian race, the bloody feuds and unbridled licentiousness which
disgraced their courts, had caused their alliance to be shunned by the more
civilized rulers of the other leading German tribes. The practice of polygamy,
common among the Frankish kings, also tended to diminish both the honor and
advantage of an alliance with them. Charibert, as we have seen, chose several
wives during his brief reign, from among the lowest of his people. The Franks
themselves at last became impatient of the disgrace which was brought upon
their nation by the low amours of their monarchs and the vulgar brawls of their
plebeian consorts. It was from a desire to gratify his people, as well as his
own better taste, that Sigebert looked abroad among the families of
contemporary sovereigns for a partner worthy of his throne. Having made his
choice, he sent ambassadors to the court of Athanagild,
King of the Visigoths in Spain, and demanded his daughter Bruna in marriage.
Athanagild, fearing perhaps the consequences
of a refusal, agreed to the proposed alliance, and sent back his daughter to
Sigebert, with the ambassadors, whom he loaded with presents for his future
son-in-law. The name of the bride was changed to Brunhilda on the occasion of
her marriage. The graces of her person, the great and highly cultivated
powers of her mind, are celebrated by all who have occasion to mention her in
her earlier years. Gregory of Tours, in particular, speaks of her in glowing
terms, describing her as a maiden of elegant accomplishments, of charming
aspect, honorable and decorous in her character and manners, wise in counsel,
and bland in speech. She belonged indeed to an Arian house, but quickly yielded
to the preaching of the Catholic clergy, and the exhortations of her royal spouse.
This noble and beautiful woman became one of the leading spirits in an age of
intrigue and blood, and is charged by her enemies with having instigated so
many murders as to have fulfilled the prophecy of Sibylla: “Bruna shall come from the parts of Spain, before
whose face many nations shall perish”.
CHILPERIC SEEKS HAND OF
GALSUINTHA.
Her equally celebrated rival Fredegunda, the wife of Chilperic,
rose to her lofty station from a very different sphere. The great éclat which
attended the nuptials of Sigebert excited the emulation of Chilperic,
the King of Soissons, who knew his own vile character so little as to suppose
that he could live happily with one virtuous and high-born queen. He also sent
ambassadors to the Visigothic court, and claimed the hand of Galsuintha, the sister of Brunhilda, solemnly engaging to
dismiss his other wives and concubines, and to treat her as became her origin
and character. To the great grief of the Royal maiden and her mother (for the
worthlessness of Chilperic was known), his suit was
successful; and the unwilling bride departed, with terrible forebodings and
amid the lamentations of her family, to the court of her barbarous husband.
The principal among the concubines of Chilperic,
was Fredegunda, a woman of the meanest birth, but fair, ingenious, and skilled
in meretricious arts. For a short time she was thrown into the shade by the
arrival of the royal bride; but having already supplanted a former queen of Chilperic’s, named Andovera, whose servant she had been, she did not
despair of making the lascivious king forget his good intentions and his solemn
vows.
Galsuintha, who had none of the terrible
energy which distinguished her sister, was rendered so unhappy by the
persecution of her victorious rival and the open infidelity of her husband,
that she begged to be allowed to return to her old home and affectionate
parents, offering at the same time to leave behind her the treasures she had
brought. The king, who was not prepared for so open an exposure of his perfidy,
temporized, and endeavored to soothe her. Whatever feeble emotions of
repentance he may have felt were soon effaced by the suggestion of the fiendish
spirit in whose power he was; and after a few days Galsuintha was strangled in her bed, by the command, or at least with the permission, of
her husband. That no circumstance of atrocity might be wanting to this
transaction, Chilperic publicly married Fredegunda a
few days after the murder, to the great scandal of his subjects. This event,
which took place about AD 567, confirmed and deepened the
enmity which already existed between Sigebert
and his brother, and kindled in the bosom of Brunhilda that
feverish longing for revenge which poisoned her naturally noble nature, and
spread its deadly influence over the whole of her subsequent career.
WAR BETWEEN SIGEBERT AND
CHILPERIC.
At the time when Austrasia was hard pressed by the invading Huns, Chilperic had embraced the opportunity of seizing Rheims
and other towns in the kingdom of Sigebert. The latter, however, no sooner
found his hands at liberty, than he attacked and defeated the army of his
brother, regained the captured towns, and made Chilperic’s own son a prisoner. A hollow truce was then concluded, and the captive prince
was restored to his father, enriched with gifts by his placable and generous uncle, who only
stipulated that he should not bear arms against his liberator. But Chilperic was one of those natures which know no ties but
the bonds of appetite and lust, and was as incapable of acknowledging an obligation
as of keeping an oath.
We are told that in consequence of the foul murder of the Visigothic
princess and the disgraceful union with the suspected murderess, Chilperic was driven from the throne of Soissons. We may
infer from this that the war which began between the brothers, on his
restoration, was the result, in part at least, of the enmity of the rival
queens. The immediate cause of the renewal of the conflict was an attack made
by Chilperic upon Poitou and Touraine, which had
fallen to Sigebert on the death of Charibert. It was a great object with the
contending parties to secure the co-operation of Guntram,
King of Burgundy, who, though inferior to the others in power, could throw a
decisive weight into either scale. The great superiority of the Austrasian army lay in its exclusively German character.
Sigebert drew together large forces on the right bank of the Rhine from Suabia, Bavaria, Saxony, and
Thuringia, and, evidently mistrusting Guntram,
marched to the Seine, and threatened the Burgundians with the whole weight of
his resentment should they refuse him a passage through their country. Chilperic on his part pointed out to the King of Burgundy
the danger of allowing a “rude and heathen people” to enter the civilized and
Christian Gaul. So marked had the distinctions between the population of
Austrasia and that of the rest of the Frankish Empire become, that they
regarded each other as aliens.
But if external civilization was on the side of Neustria and Burgundy,
the strength and marrow of the Franks was represented by Sigebert and his Austrasians; and when the latter, more Germanorum, asked his perfidious enemy to fix a
time and place for the battle, Chilperic sued for
peace, and obtained it on condition of surrendering Poitou, Touraine, Limoges,
and Quercy. He was
also compelled to recall his son Theudebert, whom, in
utter disregard of the promise made to Sigebert, he had sent with an army into
Aquitaine.
In AD 575 Chilperic, incited
as is supposed by the unsleeping malice of Fredegunda, and smarting under his
recent loss of territory, determined once more to try the fortune of war
against his generous conqueror. On this occasion he succeeded in persuading Guntram into an alliance against Sigebert, whom he called
“our enemy”. Theudebert was sent with an army across
the Loire, while Chilperic himself fell upon
Champagne. The King of Burgundy appears to have given little more than his
sympathy to the Romano-Gallic cause, and soon saw cogent reasons for concluding
a separate peace with the Austrasians. The campaign
ended as usual in the entire discomfiture of Chilperic,
whose Frankish subjects, tired of following a treacherous and, still worse, an
unsuccessful leader, offered the kingdom of Soissons to Sigebert, and actually
raised him on the shield, and proclaimed him king at Vitry.
The result of this election would appear to show that it was only the work of a
party, perhaps the Austrasian or German party,
against the wishes of the great mass of the nation. Chilperic in the meantime was closely besieged by Sigebert’s troops at Tournai,
and everything seemed to threaten his utter downfall, when he was saved by the
same bloody hand which had often led him into crime and danger. Fredegunda,
maddened at the spectacle of her most hated foes sitting on the throne of her
husband, and receiving the homage of those whom she herself had virtually
ruled, sent two hired assassins to Vitry. Under
the pretence of holding a secret conference with
Sigebert, they gained access to his person, and stabbed him in the side with
their knives. Thus died the warlike and high-minded King of Austrasia in AD 575.
It is evident that the Neustrians were not sincere
when they offered the crown to Sigebert, and that Fredegunda reckoned on the
support at all events of the Gallo-Romans. The daggers of her myrmidons did the
work of many victories. No inquiry appears to have been instituted to discover
the originators of the crime; and Chilperic and his
queen, instead of suffering in public opinion or incurring the vengeance
of Sigebert’s former
friends, appear to have been released by this foul deed from the most imminent
peril, and at once to have regained their power.
CHILDEBERT ESCAPES FROM PRISON.
No sooner had Sigebert fallen under the knives of Fredegunda’s assassins than Chilperic despatched messengers to his friends at Paris to secure the persons of Brunhilda and her
son and daughter, who were residing at that city. In the consternation and
confusion consequent on Sigebert’s sudden
and unexpected death, no open resistance was offered by Brunhilda’s partisans, and she and her whole family
were thrown into close confinement. Childebert, however, the heir to Sigebert’s crown, at this
time about five years old, was saved by the fidelity and vigour of Gundobald, Duke of Campania, who caused him to be
let down from the window of his prison in a sack, and escaped with him to Metz,
where he was immediately proclaimed king by the Austrasian seigniors. Chilperic himself appeared in Paris soon
afterwards, and sent Brunhilda to Rouen and her daughter to Meaux, and kept
them both under strict surveillance.
In order still further to improve the opportunity afforded by the
removal of Sigebert, Chilperic sent part of his army
under Roccolenus against Tours, which was speedily
taken; and another division under his son Meroveus against
Poitou. The latter expedition terminated in a very unexpected manner. Meroveus was little inclined to carry out any designs
of his stepmother, Fredegunda, whom he hated, and least of all to the injury of
Brunhilda, to whose extraordinary personal charms and varied accomplishments,
to which even bishops were not insensible, his heart had fallen a captive.
Instead of executing his father’s orders at Poitou, he hastened to Rouen, and
offered his hand in marriage to Brunhilda, whose forlorn condition inclined her
to accept the homage and assistance thus proffered from the camp of her
enemies. This strange turn of affairs appears greatly to have alarmed
Fredegunda and Chilperic, who followed so quickly on
the steps of his rebellious son, that the latter had barely time to escape into
asylum in the church of St. Martin at Rouen; from which he could not be
persuaded to come out until security was granted for his own life and that of
Brunhilda. Chilperic, it is said, received them
kindly, and invited them to his table. Meroveus was
then transferred to Soissons, and carefully guarded; while Brunhilda, whether
from a passing emotion of generosity in Chilperic’s mind or the fear of Guntram, who had espoused
his nephew’s cause, was set at liberty and returned to Metz.
Whatever motives led to her liberation, it was not likely to be accepted
by Brunhilda as a compensation for the murder of one husband and the
imprisonment of another. Her first act after joining her son at Metz was to
dispatch an army to Soissons, which in the first instance had nearly taken
Fredegunda prisoner, but was afterwards defeated by the Neustrians;
the latter, in their turn, received a check from the forces of Guntram, and retreated with a loss of 20,000 men.
DEATH OF MEROVEUS.
Meroveus, in the
meantime, was shorn of his royal locks and compelled to become a
monk. In AD 577, he succeeded in escaping to the court of
Brunhilda at Metz; but, though the queen received him gladly, he was compelled
by a powerful faction of the Australian nobility, who were in close
correspondence with Fredegunda, to quit the dominions of Childebert. After
various adventures, he is said to have sought death at the hands of a faithful
servant, to avoid falling into the power of his own father. Gregory of Tours, though
he does not speak decidedly, evidently believes that he was treacherously
ensnared by Egidius, Bishop of Rheims, Guntram-Boso, and other bitter enemies of Brunhilda, and
murdered at the instigation of Fredegunda.
Nothing in the history of the joint reigns of Sigebert, Chilperic, and Guntram is more
astonishing and perplexing to the reader, than the suddenness with which they
form and dissolve alliances with one another,—the fickleness of their mutual
friendships, and the placability of
their enmities. Within the space often years we find Guntram and Childebert in league against Chilperic, Chilperic and Childebert against Guntram,
and Guntram and Chilperic against Childebert; and the parts were changed more than once in this short
period. After a bloody war with his nephew Childebert, the Burgundian king
adopts him as heir to all his dominions. After protecting the same nephew and
his mother Brunhilda against Fredegunda, the same Guntram defends Fredegunda against Childebert, and stands godfather to her son
Clotaire, in utter defiance of the entreaties and threats of his adopted
successor. At the death of Chilperic, too, no one
wept more bitterly for his loss than his brother Guntram,
though the greater part of their active manhood had been spent in plundering
and laying waste each other’s towns and fields. “I am weary”, says Gregory of
Tours, when speaking of the events which followed the death of Sigebert, “of
relating the changeful events of the civil wars that wasted the Frankish nation
and kingdoms, and in which, we behold the time predicted by our Lord as the
‘beginning of sorrows’, when ‘the brother shall deliver up the brother to
death, and the father the child’,” &c.
Yet it would be wrong to ascribe the internecine wars by which the
Frankish Empire was harassed and wasted, solely or even chiefly to the
covetousness, ambition, or malice of the brother kings; they were owing in a
still greater degree to the intrigues of the rival queens, whose hatred never
changed and never slept,—to the endless feuds of the factious seigniors against
each other, and their constant endeavors, as individuals and as a class, to
make themselves independent of the crown. Similar causes produced similar
results in our own history during the wars of the Roses, to which, in their
general characteristics, the struggles of which we have now to speak bear no
small analogy.
FREDEGUNDA’S CHILDREN DIE OF
PLAGUE.
One of the principal objects of Fredegunda in the persecution and murder
of Meroveus—though his love for Brunhilda was
alone sufficient to rouse her rival’s deadliest hatred—was to bring her own
children nearer to the throne. This cherished purpose was signally and terribly
frustrated. A fatal epidemic which raged in AD 580 through
nearly the whole of Gaul, after attacking Chilperic himself, carried off both the sons whom Fredegunda had borne to him. The only
symptoms of the better feelings of our nature recorded of Fredegunda were
called forth, as might be expected, by this event. The death of her children
touched the heart and stirred the conscience of this perjured, bloody-minded
adulteress, who through life had been steeped in crime to the very lips. She
called upon her husband to recognize with her the chastening hand of an
offended God. She even sought, by burning the lists of those whom she had
marked out as objects for an arbitrary and grinding taxation, to appease the
wrath of Heaven. “Often”, she said to Chilperic, “has
God afflicted us with fevers, and other misfortunes, but no amendment on our
part has followed. Lo! now we have lost our children! The tears of the poor,
the lamentations of the widow, have destroyed them”. Her repentance, however,
soon gave way before her more habitual feelings. Clovis, the son of Chilperic’s first queen or concubine, Andovera, alone remained as heir
to the Neustrian throne. Unable to endure the thought
that others might cherish hopes which she herself had lost, Fredegunda
accused this prince of having poisoned her children; and having induced the
weak and wicked Chilperic to imprison him, she soon
afterwards caused him to be murdered, together with Andovera herself.
Guntram of Burgundy, as we have seen,
aided in establishing Childebert on his father’s throne; and in AD 576
checked the victorious advance of Chilperic’s troops.
But in AD 581 the party of Austrasian seigniors which was favorable to the Neustrian alliance,—chiefly in consequence of their enmity to Brunhilda—obtained the
upper hand, and induced or forced their young king to ally himself with Chilperic against Burgundy. As the price of this
alliance—and he did nothing without being richly paid for it—Chilperic was allowed to take possession of Senlis, Poitou, and Meaux, while
Childebert was amused with the shadowy prospect of succeeding to the kingdom of
Paris. At the head of the faction above referred to, were Bishop Egidius, and the Dukes Ursio and Bertefried, the political and personal enemies of
Brunhilda. The queen was ably though unsuccessfully supported by Duke Lupus,
whose steady attachment to his royal mistress’s cause, even to his own
destruction, inclines us to give more than usual credit to the eulogies
of Fortunatus.
OPPOSITION OF SEIGNIORS TO
BRUNHILDA.
The anarchy into which the state had fallen after the death of Sigebert,
the pride and insolence of the seigniors, and the rancorous feelings with which
they regarded Brunhilda are portrayed in vivid colors in the pages of Gregory.
“Lupus, Duke of Campania”, he says, “had for a long time been persecuted and
plundered by his adversaries, especially by the two powerful dukes Ursio and Bertefried, who, determined to
take his life, marched against him with an armed band of followers. Brunhilda,
being informed of their intentions, and moved with pity by the persecutions to
which her faithful adherent was subjected, rushed forth in male attire between
the ranks of the enemy, crying out, ‘Refrain, refrain, from this evil deed, and
do not persecute the innocent. Do not, on account of one man, commence a
conflict by which the welfare of the country may be destroyed”. Ursio insolently answered
the temperate words of the mother of his king : “Depart from us, 0 woman! Be
content to have possessed the royal power under your husband. Your son now
reigns, and his kingdom is preserved, not by your guardianship, but by ours.
Retire from us, lest the hoofs of our horses should trample you under foot”.
In AD 583 Guntram found it
necessary to sue for peace, and was obliged, in order to gain it, to leave his
brother Chilperic in possession of all the territory
he had conquered in the course of the war. In the same year, however, an
attempt of the Burgundians to recover that part of Marseilles of which the Austrasians were in possession afforded Egidius an opportunity of forming a fresh alliance between Childebert and Chilperic; and he himself headed an embassy to the Neustrian court with this object. Chilperic gladly accepted his nephew’s overtures, and prepared to attack Guntram. The fortune of war, however, which had hitherto
enabled him to make large additions to his own territory at the expense of his
kinsmen, now deserted him. He besieged Bourges without success. His general
Desiderius was beaten by the Burgundians; and when Chilperic hastened in person to meet his brother in the field, he suffered a reverse
which greatly cooled his warlike and predatory ardor. Nor were his allies at
all inclined to help him out of his difficulties. The great body of the Austrasians, and a party even among the seigniors, were
averse to an alliance with Chilperic and Fredegunda,
the real object of which they believed to be the increase of Neustrian—in other words Roman—influence in their own
government. On the news of Chilperic’s discomfiture a
violent mutiny broke out in the army of Childebert against the authors of the
war, and especially against Egidius, who narrowly
escaped the fury of the soldiers by the fleetness of his horse, leaving one of
his slippers on the road in the hurry of his flight.
MURDER OF CHILPERIC AT CHELLES.
Brunhilda for the time regained her ascendancy; and Chilperic expecting, as a matter of course, to see his late enemy and his late ally unite
for his destruction, made great preparations to meet them. The looked for attack was not made, but in the same
year Chilperic himself died, or, as Gregory has it,
“poured forth his wicked spirit” beneath the hand of an assassin, named Falca, as he was riding through
a forest in the neighborhood of Paris.
Gregory of Tours appears to be ignorant of the instigators and
perpetrators of this crime; but, according to a romantic story, the minuteness
of which is very suspicious, Chilperic fell a victim
to the treachery of her for whose sake he had dared and sinned so much. Among
the numerous lovers of Fredegunda was the Majordomos Laudericus, whose intimate relation to his queen
was accidentally discovered by Chilperic while on a
hunting expedition at Chelles. Fredegunda quieted the
fears of her lover by promising to send murderers to attack her husband as he
was dismounting from his horse; which was done accordingly.
Brunhilda, very naturally, wished to take the opportunity afforded by Chilperic’s death of making reprisals in the enemy’s
country, and of avenging herself on her implacable and now widowed rival
Fredegunda. But Guntram, who had good reasons for
desiring that neither Austrasia nor Neustria should become too powerful,
came forward on this occasion to protect one, whom at another time he had
called “the enemy of God and man”. Shortly before Chilperic’s death (in AD 584) Fredegunda had borne a son, whom, though the
popular voice assigned him another father, Chilperic appears to have acknowledged as his heir. Her first endeavor therefore was to
induce her brother-in-law to act as sponsor to this child, by which she thought
that both his legitimacy would be established and his succession to the throne
secured. Guntram did actually proceed, in the
Christmas of AD 585, from Orleans to Paris, to fulfill her
wishes in this respect. But, according to Gregory’s account, when Guntram was prepared to take part in the ceremony, the
child was not forthcoming. Three times was the Burgundian king summoned to be
present at the baptism of Clotaire, and three times was he obliged to leave
Paris, without seeing his intended godchild; and under these circumstances he
thought himself justified in suspecting the infant king’s legitimacy. As he
uttered in the most public manner his complaints of Fredegunda’s conduct, and his unfavorable
impressions concerning the child, the queen, in the presence of three bishops,
three hundred of the chief men in her kingdom, and probably of the King of
Burgundy himself, solemnly swore that Clotaire was the son of Chilperic. Yet Guntram’s suspicions
were not altogether laid to rest, nor was the child baptized before AD 591.
He immediately, however, assumed the office of the young king's guardian and
administrator of the kingdom, and occupied Paris with his troops. Childebert,
who hastened too late in the same direction, though grievously disappoint
at the turn which things had taken, still hoped to induce his uncle to share
the spoil that fortune had thrown in their way, and sent an embassy to Paris,
which had become the Neustrian capital. He reminded Guntram through these envoys how much they had both
suffered from the rapacity of Chilperic, and urged
him at least to lend his aid in demanding back all that had been unjustly and
violently taken from them. But Fredegunda in the meantime had not been idle.
She had disclosed to Guntram the terms of a treaty
which had no long time before been made between the seigniors of
Childebert and the seigniors of Chilperic for the
partition of Burgundy. He knew therefore the degree of confidence which
could be placed in his nephew’s ambassadors. He was able to display before
their astonished eyes the very document which proved them to be traitors to
their own master, to himself, and in fact to the whole Merovingian
Dynasty. They were dismissed with a decided refusal. Childebert sent the same
persons back again to Paris to demand that “the murderess of his father, uncle,
aunt”, and others, should be delivered up to him for punishment. To this
message Guntram replied with more respect, but still
refused compliance; declaring his intention of referring the matter to a grand
council to be held at Paris. In the meantime Clotaire was proclaimed king,
probably at Vitry.
The relations between Childebert and his uncle now became unfriendly,
and actual hostilities were commenced, which appear to have resulted
unfavorably for the former. The council which Guntram had summoned for AD 585 was eagerly looked forward to; and
when it met, Egidius, Guntram-Boso, Sigewald and others,—who
were now well known to be plotting the downfall of their own sovereign and of the
King of Burgundy, and whose real object was to separate them as widely as
possible,—appeared as the representatives of Childebert. They demanded, as
before, the restoration of the territories which had belonged to Charibert, and
the punishment of Fredegunda for her numerous crimes. As both parties had
determined on their course beforehand, the discussion between Guntram and the Australian envoys soon degenerated into
altercation and abuse; and when the latter left the court with threats of
vengeance, the enraged king ordered them to be pelted with horse-dung, musty
hay, and mud.
SEIGNIORS UNITE AGAINST
MONARCHY.
Fredegunda underwent a mock trial on this occasion, and was of coarse
acquitted. Though the suspicions of the whole assembly rested on herself, she
was asked to name the person whom she believed to be the murderer of her
husband. She fixed on Chilperic’s chamberlain Eberulf, out of revenge, as
Gregory tells us, because he had refused to live with her. The unhappy man
escaped into sanctuary for a time, but was subsequently seized and put to death
by order of Guntram.
It became evident at this time to the astute Burgundian, for reasons
which we shall proceed to explain, that nothing but a real, hearty, and lasting
alliance between himself and Childebert could save them from falling a prey to
the machinations of the turbulent and aspiring seigniors.
The period at which we have now arrived is remarkable in Frankish
history as that in which the rising Aristocracy began to try its strength
against the Monarchy. The royal power of the Merovingians, forced, as will be
seen hereafter, into rapid growth by peculiarly favorable circumstances,
culminated in the joint reigns of Chilperic, Guntram, and Sigebert. The accumulation of property in the
hands of a few, as described in a subsequent chapter, and the consequent loss
of independence by the great mass of the poorer freemen, were fatal to the
stability of the Merovingian throne. A privileged and powerful order of
nobility was in process of formation, and was at this time strong enough to
wage a doubtful war against both king and people. The latter were on the side
of the monarchy; and, had the reins of government remained in able and energetic hands, the loyalty of the commons
might have sustained the throne against all the attacks to which it was
subjected. The murder of Sigebert had an extraordinary effect on the position
of the contending parties, and did much to accelerate the downfall of the
successors of Clovis.
The enemies of Sigebert’s infant
successor were those of his own household, the great landowners, the dignified
clergy, the high officials of the kingdom, who seized the opportunity—afforded
by the minority of the crown—of taking the entire administration into their own
hands. The chief opponent of their wishes, by whose extraordinary vigour the downfall of the throne was retarded, though not
prevented, was the widow of the murdered king, Brunhilda. The misfortunes and
sufferings of her checquered life,
and the horrible death by which it was closed, were mainly owing to the intense
hatred she excited by her opposition to the ambitious designs of the seigniors.
GUNDOBALD THE PRETENDER.
The deeply rooted attachment of the people to the long-haired Salian
kings rendered it dangerous for any party, however powerful, to pursue openly
their designs against the monarchy; and we find that in all the rebellions
which broke out at this period, the malcontents were headed by some real or
pretended scion of the Merovingian stock. The plan so frequently adopted by
aristocracies in their struggle with royalty, of setting up a pretender to the
crown, was resorted to during the minority of Sigebert’s son, Childebert II, and not without
effect. The person fixed on this occasion was generally known by the name
of Gundobald, though King Guntram asserted that his real name was Ballomer,
and that he was the son of a miller or a woolcomber. The account which Gregory of Tours
gives of him is interesting, and inspires a doubt, to say the least, whether he
was not really, as he assumed to be, the son of Clotaire I by one of his
numerous mistresses. The historian relates that Gundobald was born in Gaul, and carefully brought up according to the customs of the
Merovingian family. His hair was allowed to grow long, as a mark of his royal
descent; and, after he had received a literal education, he was presented by
his mother to king Childebert I, with these words: “Behold, here is your
nephew, the son of King Clotaire. Since he is hated by his father, do
you receive him, for he is your flesh and blood”. Childebert, who was
childless, received him kindly; but when Clotaire heard of it, he sent for
the youth, and declaring that he had “never begotten him”, ordered him to be
shorn.
After the death of Clotaire I, Gundobald was
patronized by King Charibert. Sigebert, however, once more cut off his hair,
and sent him into custody at Cologne. Escaping from that place, and allowing
his hair to grow long again, Gundobald took refuge
with the imperial general Narses, who then commanded in Italy. There he married
and had children, and went subsequently to Constantinople, where, as it would
appear, he was received by the Greek Emperor with every mark of respect
and friendship. He was then, according to his own account, invited by Guntram-Boso to come to Gaul, and, having landed at
Marseilles, was received by Bishop Theodore and the Patrician Mummolus.
Such was the person fixed on by the mutinous grandees of Austrasia as a
tool for the furtherance of their designs against the monarchy. Nor could they
have found one better suited to their purpose. It is evident in the first place
that he was himself fully persuaded of the justice of his own claims; a
conviction which gave him a greater power of inspiring faith in others than the
most consummate art. He was entirely dependent on the aid of the rebellious
nobles for his chance of success, and would therefore, had he succeeded in
effecting his purpose, have been bound by gratitude, as well as forced by
circumstances, to consult the interests of those who had raised him to the
throne. The fact of his residence at Constantinople, and the sanction of his
claims by the Greek Emperor, were not without their weight. The prestige of the
Roman Empire, as we observed above, had not yet entirely perished, nor had the
Franks altogether ceased to look on Rome and Constantinople as the great
fountains of power and honor. The nobles indeed intended that no one should
really rule but themselves; but as they could not do so in their own names,
nothing would better have suited their views than to have a puppet king in
nominal allegiance to a weak and distant emperor. Under such circumstances they
alone, in the utter decay of the old German freedom and the popular institutions
in which it lived, would have become possessors of the substantial power of the
empire.
The cause of Gundobald was much aided by the
miserable jealousies existing between the different Frankish kings, who,
instead of uniting their forces against their common enemy—the rising
aristocracy—were eager to employ the pretender as a weapon of annoyance against
each other.
Among the chief actors in this conspiracy—though a secret one—was Guntram-Boso, a man whom Gregory quaintly describes as too
much addicted to perjury; so that he never took an oath to any of his friends
which he did not afterwards break. “In other respects”, adds the historian, he
was “sane bonus!” Gundobald relates, with every
appearance of probability, that he met with Guntram-Boso while at Constantinople,—that the wily plotter informed him
that the race of the Merovingians consisted of only three persons, Guntram of Burgundy, and his two Nephews (Childebert II,
and the little son of Chilperic), and invited him to
Gaul with the assurance that he was eagerly expected by all the Australian
magnates. “I gave him”, says Gundobald, “magnificent
presents, and he swore at twelve holy places that I might safely go to Gaul”.
On his arrival at Marseilles in AD 582, Gundobald was received by Bishop Theodore, who furnished
him with horses, and by the Patrician Mummolus,
whose conduct in withdrawing from the Burgundian court, and throwing
himself with all his followers and treasures into the fortress of Avignon, had
excited the suspicions of King Guntram.
Gundobald joined him in that place, and was
there besieged by the very man who had first invited him to Gaul, viz. Guntram-Boso. This double traitor had endeavored to keep
his treachery out of sight, and to stand well with both parties, until fortune
should point out the stronger. His namesake Guntram of Burgundy, however, was not deceived, and took an opportunity of seizing Boso on his return from a journey to the court of
Childebert. The Burgundian king openly charged him with having invited Gundobald to Gaul, and having gone to Constantinople for
that very purpose. It now became necessary for Boso to take a decided part; and, as the king would listen to no mere protestations,
he offered to leave his son as a hostage, and himself to lead an army to attack Mummolus and Gundobald in
Avignon. The Pretender and the Patrician, however, defended themselves with so
much skill and courage, that Guntram-Boso, with all
his now sincere endeavors to storm the town, could make no progress; and the
siege was, singularly enough, raised by the troops of king Childebert II.
PROGRESS OF THE PRETENDER.
This extraordinary interference of the youthful King of Austrasia in
behalf of a pretender to his own crown, can hardly receive a satisfactory
explanation; and the historian Gregory himself throws no light upon the
mystery. It is not impossible that the Austrasian magnates, who were almost all more or less interested in the success of the
conspiracy, may have blinded both the king and his mother Brunhilda to the real
objects of Gundobald; and we see that any one of the
royal kinsmen would have gladly aided Gundobald, if
they could have been sure that his claims were confined to the throne of his
neighbors. The want of common action between the courts became still more
evident in the sequel, and, but for the wisdom and vigour of Guntram, would have proved the ruin of the whole
royal house.
The murder of Chilperic in AD 584
renewed the hopes of Gundobald and his friends, by
inflicting upon Neustria the same evils of a minority from which Austrasia had
already suffered so severely.
A numerous party, including many of the ablest and boldest of the Austrasian seigniors, were openly or secretly attached to
the Pretender's cause. He had gained possession of Angouleme, Perigord,
Toulouse, and Bordeaux; and at Christmas AD 584 he was even
raised on the shield at Brives (in Correze), and saluted with the
royal title. The Burgundian king now plainly saw that not only the throne of
Childebert, but the whole Merovingian Dynasty, and even Monarchy itself, were
at stake, and that, if the suicidal feud between himself and his nephew
continued much longer, the success of the Pretender was by no means an
improbable result. His first object, therefore, was to conciliate Childebert,
and to lessen the influence which Brunhilda, on the one hand, and the great
party of Austrasian nobles, who secretly favored Gundobald, on the other, had hitherto exercised over his
young and inexperienced mind. Fortune threw in Guntram’s way the means of accomplishing his purpose.
Since the death of Chilperic, and the acquittal of
Fredegunda which had so greatly offended Brunhilda and her son, the cause of
the Pretender was evidently prospering, and the greater part of the Austrasian seigniors were only waiting for a fair assurance
of success to declare themselves openly in his favor.
In AD 535 Gundobald was in a
position to send to Guntram regular ambassadors,
furnished, after the Frankish custom, with consecrated rods in token of
inviolability, to demand of him a portion of the kingdom of their common father
Clotaire. “Should this be refused”, they said, “Gundobald will invade these territories with a large army; for all the bravest men in
Gaul beyond the Dordogne are in league with him”. “And then”, added Gundobald, by the mouth of his messengers, “when we meet on
the field of battle, will God decide whether I am Clotaire’s son or not”.
GUNTRAM AND CHILDEBERT
RECONCILED.
Guntram, who was no less bold than
cunning, and by no means scrupulous, put the envoys of Gundobald to the torture, and made them confess in their agony that all the grandees
of Childebert’s kingdom
were in secret understanding with the Pretender, and that Guntram-Boso had gone to Constantinople to invite him into Gaul. Nothing could be more
opportune for Guntram’s purposes
than this confession. He immediately reported it to his nephew, and begged him
to come and hear it repeated by the unhappy envoys themselves. Childebert
agreed to the proposed meeting, and heard, to his astonishment, the
confirmation of his subjects’ treachery. With a well-timed generosity, Guntram not only gave up all the points on which he and
Childebert had been divided, and restored important possessions to the Austrasian crown, but presented his nephew to the
Burgundian people and army, as the future heir of his throne. Placing his
spear, one of the ensigns of Frankish royalty, in the hand of the young king,
“This”, said he, “is a sign that I have delivered my whole kingdom into your
hands. Depart hence, and bring all my dominions under your sway, as if they
were your own”.
In a private conference he gave his nephew sound advice with respect to
the choice of counselors, warning him more particularly against Egidius, the traitorous bishop of Rheims, and against
Brunhilda, his own mother. He also begged him to hold no communication of any
kind with Gundobald.
This alliance was felt by the conspirators to be fatal to their cause.
Many immediately deserted Gundobald, and those who
still remained about his person, the chief of whom were Bishop Sagittarius,
Dukes Mummolus and Bladastes, and Waddo the Majordomus, fled with him to a
town called Convene, strongly situated on an isolated hill in the Pyrenees. The
army of Guntram under Leudegisil, soon attacked the place with
newly-constructed military engines, but with so little success, that, after a
siege of some weeks, they found it necessary to offer terms to Mummolus and the other leaders, on condition of their
betraying Gundobald. To this proposal no objection
was raised by the conspirators, who thought only of their own safety.
They went to the unhappy Pretender, and advised him to throw himself on
his brother’s mercy, by whom they assured him he would be well received. Gundobald was not deceived by their specious
representations: bursting into tears, he said, “By your invitation I came into
Gaul; but of my treasures, in which there is an immense weight of silver and
gold and various costly rings, part is kept at Avignon and part has been stolen
by Guntram-Boso. Next to God, I have based all my
hopes upon you, and have always expected to reign by your means. If ye have
spoken falsely to me now, make up your account with God, for He himself shall
judge my cause”. Mummolus assured him with
an oath that he should take no harm, and persuaded him to leave the city, at
the gate of which, he told him, brave men were waiting to receive him. He was
then handed over to Olio, Count of Bourges, and Guntram-Boso,
who murdered him in cold blood as he descended the precipitous hill on which
the city stood. The besieging army was soon after admitted into the town, the
inhabitants were put to the sword, and even the priests were slain at the
altars.
Nor did the traitors, who sought their own safety by sacrificing the
victim of their arts, escape the punishment they deserved. Guntram paid no attention to the terms of their surrender, or the promise of pardon
held out to them, but ordered them all to be put to death. Bishop Sagittarius
and Mummolus suffered at once; the others
met their fate at a later period.
We have thought it worthwhile to give a more detailed account of this
conspiracy, because it was one of the most remarkable attempts of the nascent
aristocracy to bring the crown into subserviency to
themselves—an object in which, at a subsequent period, they fully succeeded.
The account, too, of these transactions, as it stands in the pages of Gregory,
gives us an insight into the state of society in that turbulent and chaotic
period, when the bands of society were loosed, and treachery and violence were
resorted to even by those who were engaged to a certain degree on the side of
justice and legal authority. The degradation of the Church and its ministers is
also brought painfully before us in the history of these times. Priests and
bishops are among the conspirators, the perjurors, and the murderers; and so completely
lose their sacerdotal character in the eyes both of king and people, that they
are condemned to death by the one, and slaughtered at their altars by the other.
For the moment the cause of royalty was triumphant, and Brunhilda was
enabled openly to take upon herself the guardianship of her still youthful son,
and the administration of his kingdom. The spectacle of a woman reigning—and
that woman Brunhilda, the energetic champion of royalty— soon gave rise to a
renewal of the struggle in which she was engaged until her death.
FRESH REBELLION OF SEIGNIORS.
Not more than two years after the death of Gundobald,
the Austrasian and Neustrian nobles united in a new conspiracy, the object of which was to put Childebert to
death, to deprive Guntram of his kingdom, and to
place the infant sons of the former on the vacant thrones of Australia and
Burgundy. The seigniors sought in fact to hasten that minority of the crown
which afterwards occurred, and proved so advantageous to their cause. This
fresh attempt was headed by Rauching, Ursio, and Bertefried (of whom we have
spoken above), who intended to share the chief authority among themselves,
under the pretence of administering the kingdom for
the sons of Childebert. The increasing power of Brunhilda, and her well-known
desire of revenging the insults she had received at their hands, served to
quicken their movements, and drove them prematurely into rebellion. In this
case, too, a pretence of hereditary claims was set
up, Rauching having
given out that he also was a son of Clotaire. But the watchfulness of Guntram, who employed their own treacherous arts against
themselves, completely frustrated their designs.
As soon as he had received secret intelligence of the plans of the
conspirators, he sent a letter of warning to his nephew, who ordered Rauching to be summoned to
the court, and had him killed as he left the royal chamber, where he had been
received with treacherous kindness. The rebels appointed a new leader, but were
unable to make head against Childebert’s army. Ursio and Bertefried were defeated
and slain; Guntram-Boso also, who groveled at the
feet of Brunhilda with the most abject entreaties for his life, received at
last the reward of his crimes. The house in which he had taken refuge
with Magneric, Bishop
of Treves, as set on fire by the order of King Guntram,
and as he sought to escape, he was pierced by such a shower of javelins that
his body stood erect, supported by the bristling shafts. Egidius alone contrived to buy impunity for his treason with costly presents.
It was the fear of this new conspiracy of the seigniors that induced Guntram to draw still closer the bonds of amity and common
interest which had of late united him to his nephew Childebert. In AD 587
they met again at Anlau (Andely, near Chaumont), to which
place the young king, who was then seventeen years old, brought his mother
Brunhilda, his sister Chlodosuinth,
his wife Faileuba,
and two sons. After settling the long-pending disputes respecting the territory
of Charibert, and other debatable points, the two monarchs and Brunhilda entered
into a solemn compact of alliance and friendship.
The rebellious seigniors were for the time completely tamed by these
numerous defeats and losses; and both Guntram and
Childebert ruled their dominions, and disposed of the great offices of the
State, with absolute authority. Summary punishment was inflicted on several of
the rebellious seigniors, and especially on Ursio and Bertefried, who had made themselves conspicuous by
their rancorous opposition to Brunhilda.
We return from the foregoing digression to the death of Chilperic, who fell, as we have seen, by the hand of an
assassin in the forest of Chelles, in AD 584.
CHILPERIC'S ERUDITION.
The Prince who thus miserably ended his life, though enslaved by his
passions and unbridled lusts to a faithless and cruel woman, was not altogether
wanting in qualities which, if well directed, might have procured for him a
more honorable memory. From the ecclesiastical historians, indeed, he meets
with little quarter; yet even their strongly biassed account of him shows that he possessed
a more original and cultivated intellect than was common among the princes of
his time. The bitter denunciations of Gregory of Tours are evidently prompted
by personal feelings, which it will not be difficult in some degree to account
for. Mild and forgiving as we have found the historian to be in his judgment of
monsters like Clovis and Clotaire, we cannot but read with astonishment the
unmeasured terms of invective with which he speaks of Chilperic;
especially as it was open to him, had he been charitably inclined, to have
ascribed the majority of his evil deeds to the influence of Fredegunda. He
calls him “the Nero and Herod of our times”, and says that he devastated whole
regions with fire and sword, and derived the same pleasure from the misery he
caused as Nero from the flames of Rome. “He was given up to gluttony”,
continues Gregory, “and his god was his belly; yet he maintained that no one
was wiser than himself, and composed two books, in which he took the poet Sedulius as his model. His
feeble verses accorded with no measure, since, from want of understanding, he
put shorts for longs, and longs for shorts. He also wrote other works, as hymns
and masses”.
The unpopularity of Chilperic among the
ecclesiastical historians proceeded not entirely from the cruelty and
lasciviousness of his character, but in a greater degree, perhaps, from the
fact that he failed in the respect which the clergy exacted from the laity, and
that he meddled with theological questions. Gregory himself came several times
into direct collision with Chilperic, and certainly
did not conceal his displeasure at the conduct and opinions of the king.
“Against no one”, says Gregory, “did he direct so much ridicule and so many
jokes, in his private hours, as the bishops; one of them he called proud,
another frivolous, another luxurious—hating nothing so much as the churches.
For he frequently said, 'Lo! our treasury remains empty. Lo! Our wealth is
transferred to the churches. None really reign but the bishops”.
Contemptuously as the historian speaks of his royal master’s prosody,
and his other literary labors, it is evident from Gregory’s own pages that Chilperic was possessed of considerable erudition for the
age in which he lived. Amongst other things, he added four new letters to the
alphabet, and gave orders that they should be taught to the children throughout
the kingdom, and that all ancient manuscripts should be rewritten in accordance
with the new system. When Gregory himself was charged with treason, and of
having accused the queen of committing adultery with the Archbishop of
Bordeaux, the king addressed the council in such a manner, “that all admired
his wisdom and patience”.
Chilperic has been compared to Henry VIII
of England, to whom, in many points of his character and life, he certainly
bore a very remarkable resemblance. Like Henry, Chilperic,
notwithstanding his cruelty, was evidently not unpopular with the great mass of
his subjects. The Frankish king had indeed only three wives, and was directly
concerned in the death of only one; but, like his English brother, he was
eminently lascivious; and no one inferior in personal and mental gifts to
Fredegunda, or less deeply versed in meretricious arts, could have retained so
long a hold upon his affections. Both kings were sensible to mental as well as
sensual pleasures, and desirous of literary fame. Though they lived in the
daily violation of God’s law and every principle of our Redeemer’s religion,
they were both extremely concerned about the purity of Christian doctrines, and
wrote works in support of their opinions. The theological career of our own
king is well known to have been a most successful one. He made himself for the
time the fountain of pure doctrine as well as honor, and those who differed
from him had the fear of Smithfield before their eyes. It was far otherwise
with the Frankish king, who lived in a very different age. Chilperic wrote a work upon the Trinity, from Gregory’s description of which it would
seem that the king was inclined to the Sabellian heresy. He denied the
distinction of persons in the Godhead, and declared that Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost were the same person. He was naturally desirous of having his doctrines
preached throughout his dominions; and after causing his dissertations to be
read to Gregory of Tours, he said, “Thus I wish that you and the other teachers
of the Church should believe”. The bishop, however, on this as on many other
occasions, steadily resisted the king, and endeavored to confute him by
argument. The king angrily declared that he would explain the matter to wiser
men, who would, no doubt, agree with him. On which the bishop, with a freedom
which is hardly consistent with his description of Chilperic as the Nero and Herod of his age, replied, “It will never be a wise man, but a
fool, who is willing to assent to your proposition”. A few days afterwards, the
king explained his opinions to Salvius,
Bishop of Alby, who, so for from giving them a
more favorable reception, declared that if he could but lay hands on the paper
in which those writings were contained, he would tear them in pieces. “And so”,
adds the historian, “the king desisted from his intentions”.
FRANKS SUBSIDISED BY MAURICE.
So powerful, brave, and turbulent a nation as the Franks could not
remain long without making their influence felt beyond the limits of their own
country; and the state of Italy and the Eastern Empire was eminently favorable
to their aggressive tendencies. About three years before the Treaty of Anlau, the Greek emperor,
Maurice, being hard pressed in Italy by the Arian Longobards,
applied for aid to the Franks, as the most orthodox and powerful of all the
German tribes. He knew them too well, however, to rely solely on their
theological predilections, and offered them 50,000 solidi if
they would cross the Alps and come to his assistance, which they readily
promised to do.
There is something very exciting to the imagination in the account of
the relation and intercourse between the pompous, formal, verbose, and
over-civilized Byzantine emperors—with their high-sounding but unmeaning
titles,—and the “rough and ready” kings of the Franks, whose actual power was
far greater than its external insignia announced. Childebert addressed the
gorgeous but feeble monarch whom he is called upon to save from a kindred
tribe of Germans, as “Dominus gloriosus ac semper Augustus”. In still loftier style does the
Greek emperor speak of himself, in the commencement of his letters, as
“Imperator Caesar Flavius Mauritius Tiberius, Fidelis in Christo, Mansuetus,
Maximus, Beneficus, Pacificus, Allemanicus, Gothicus, Anticus, Vandalicus, Erulicus, Gepidicus, Africanus,
Felix, Inclitus,
Victor ac Triumphator semper Augustus”,
while Childebert is simply addressed “Childeberto viro glorioso regi Francorum”. Yet the position of these
sublime Greek potentates was such that they were compelled to lean for support
on a prop they affected to despise. The policy they were pursuing, in thus
calling a warlike, ambitious, and unscrupulous people into Italy, was a
critical one; but they had sufficient grounds for preferring the alliance of
the Franks to that of the Lombards, both in the common Catholicity of the
former, and in their distance from the imperial dominions, which made both
their friendship and their enmity less dangerous.
In AD 584, when he was not above fourteen years of age,
Childebert proceeded to perform his part in the contract with the Emperor
Maurice, and led an army across the Alps with the intention of attacking the Longobards. The latter were no match for the
Franks; nor did they imagine themselves to be so. They saw at once that they
could only avoid destruction by bending to the storm, and disarming hostility
by complete submission. Childebert and his followers were plied with
magnificent gifts, to which the Franks, like all half-civilized nations, were
peculiarly susceptible; and not only refrained from doing any injury to the Longobards, but contracted a friendly alliance with them.
The Emperor Maurice heard, to his astonishment, that the Franks had retired
into Gaul without striking a blow, enriched by presents from both parties.
Incensed at their treachery, he applied for restitution of the 50,000 solidi paid in advance for the expulsion of the Longobards. To this application Childebert returned no
answer at all,—a course which, under the circumstances, was perhaps not
the worst he could have taken. In the following year, however, the Austrasian king, who was quite impartial in his bad faith,
sent word to the emperor, that he was now ready to perform
his promise. Accordingly, after a vain attempt to induce his uncle Guntram to take part in the expedition, he advanced alone
against his newly-made friends, the Longobards, from
whom he had so lately parted in perfect amity. The latter, however, far from
giving themselves up to fancied security, had spent the interval in preparing
for the attack of their venal and fickle friends. The Franks, on the other
hand, had fallen into the error of despising an enemy who had so unresistingly
yielded to them in the former year. They advanced with confidence into Italy,
hoping, perhaps, to return as before laden with the price of their
forbearance—but they were miserably deceived.
On their approach, King Autharis and
his Longobards advanced to meet them in good order
and with great alacrity, and gave the overconfident Austrasians a bloody and decisive defeat.
A fresh invasion of Italy by the Franks took place in AD 590,
when Childebert is said to have sent twenty generals at the head of as many
divisions of his army. Yet even this great effort, though at first apparently
successful, was without any lasting results. After the greater part of the
invading force had perished by famine and dysentery, a peace was made through
the good offices of King Guntram, who had wisely kept
himself aloof. In the same year in which this peace was concluded, Autharis, King of the Longobards, died, and was succeeded by Agilulf, whom the
nation placed upon the throne on his marriage with the widowed Queen Theudelinda. The new king lost
no time in confirming the treaty which his predecessor had made; and sent
ambassadors for that purpose to the Austrasian court;
directing them also to restore some captives whom Brunhilda had ransomed with
her own money.
CHILDEBERT SUCCEEDS GUNTRAM.
A considerable time elapsed before the Franks were again in a condition
to carry on a distant war; but their attention was never afterwards wholly
withdrawn from Italy—a land whose beauty has in all times roused the lust of
conquest. They instinctively felt that it would not be safe to allow that
country to fall under the dominion of the Greek emperors, whose traditions
prompted them to constant efforts to change their empty titles into the
realities of universal empire.
At the death of his uncle Guntram, in
April AD 593, Childebert succeeded to the kingdom of Burgundy,
according to the above-mentioned Treaty of Anlau. This new accession of territory appears to
have awakened in him the desire and hope of obtaining the sole sovereignty of
the Frankish empire; for we find him almost immediately afterwards attacking
his cousin Clotaire II. His attempt to seize the city of Soissons was foiled by
the skill and conduct of Fredegunda. A bloody engagement soon afterwards ensued
between the two youthful kings, at the head of their respective forces, in
which 30,000 men are said to have fallen without any decisive result.
The last great military event of the reign of Childebert was the defeat
and almost complete destruction of the Varni; who, according to some accounts, lived among
the Thuringians, but whom Procopius represents as inhabiting the country lying
between the Elbe and the Rhine. In AD 595 they rebelled
against the Franks, and received so terrible a chastisement, that from this
time forward they altogether disappear from history.
In the following year Childebert died, at the age of twenty-six, by
poison, together with his wife Faileuba.
His elder son, Theudebert, though of illegitimate
birth, succeeded peaceably to the kingdom of Austrasia; while Theoderic, the younger, who was
but nine years old, received Burgundy and some territories hitherto attached to
Austrasia, viz., Alsace, the Sundgau (about
the sources of the Meuse), the Tulgau (about
Toul and Bar le Duc), and part of Champagne,
with Orleans as his capital. And thus, by a singular dispensation of
Providence, Brunhilda, the guardian of the infant kings, became once more
virtual ruler of the greater part of the Frankish Empire, while Neustria was
still under the influence of her implacable enemy and hated rival Fredegunda.
Brunhilda took up her residence at Metz, intrusting the administration of Burgundy to her friends.
DEATH OF FREDEGUNDA.
Under such auspices, it was not likely that the two kingdoms should
remain long at peace. Both sides prepared for war, and a great battle is said
to have been fought at Latofaus (Liffou), which has been
variously placed on the Seine in the diocese of Sens, and on the Meuse at Neufchateau, in the province of
Lorraine. The battle was fierce and bloody, and, though not very decisive, appears
to have been favorable to the Neustrians. But the
hopes of triumph and long-desired vengeance which may have been kindled thereby
in the bosom of Fredegunda were now chilled forever by the hand of death.
In a.d. 597,
her envious and restless spirit, which through life had been excited and
tortured by every violent and wicked passion, was for the first time laid to
rest.
Of the beauty, talent, and extraordinary energy of this remarkable
woman, there can be no doubt; but if we are to believe one half the stories
which her contemporary, Gregory of Tours, relates of her—as it were
incidentally, and without any appearance of antipathy or passion—we must
ascribe to Fredegunda a character unsurpassed by either sex in the annals of
the world for cruelty and baseness.
In such a character, the sins which would consign the generality of
women to infamy—incontinence before marriage and tenfold adultery after
it—appear but trifling: we are astonished to find a touch even of guilty
tenderness in a heart so black and stony. By the sacrifice of her honor to the
irregular passions of Chilperic, she rose, if we may
call it so, from the obscure position in which she was born, and gained an
entrance into the palace. Through the blood of the ill-fated Galsuintha, Brunhilda’s sister,
she waded to the throne. Having induced Chilperic—who,
whatever he was to others, was certainly a gracious king and loving husband to
her—to murder his royal bride, and publicly marry herself, she was continually
at his ear suggesting and urging the commission of the crimes which have
branded his name with infamy.
Her whole life, after her elevation to the throne, appears to have been
passed in planning and executing murder. We have seen the means by which she
succeeded in removing Sigebert from her path; and both Brunhilda and her
children were the constant object of her secret machinations. In AD 584,
when she was at the village of Rueil,
grieved at the growing power of Brunhilda, “to whom she considered herself
superior”, she sent a confidential priest to her with instructions to represent
himself as a fugitive from the Neustrian court, and,
after ingratiating himself with his intended victim, to take an opportunity of
killing her. This artful scheme was nearly successful; but the intended assassin
was accidentally detected, and dismissed to his patroness with no other
punishment than a richly-deserved flagellation. Fredegunda, however, when she
heard that his mission had failed, fully made up for the clemency of Brunhilda
by ordering his hands and feet to be cut off.
In the following year she renewed her attempts, and prepared two knives,
which she dipped in deadly poison and gave to two priests, with these
instructions: “Take these weapons, and go with all possible speed to King
Childebert, pretending that you are mendicants: and when you have thrown
yourselves at his feet, as if demanding alms, stab him in both his sides, that
Brunhilda, whose pride is founded upon him, may at length fall with him and be
subordinate to me; but if there is so strong a guard about the boy that you
cannot approach him, then kill my enemy herself”. Notwithstanding the great
promises she made to themselves, should they escape, and to their families if
they died in the attempt, the priests “began to tremble, thinking it very
difficult to fulfill her commands”. Fredegunda then primed them with an
intoxicating potion, under the influence of which they promised ail that she
desired. She also gave them some of the liquor to take with them, directing
them to use it just before the commission of the murder.
But it was not merely against what we may call her natural enemies that
her murderous arts were directed. We have seen that she was charged with being
the murderess of her husband; and though this may be doubtful, yet she certainly
compassed the murder of Clovis, her stepson, by inventing the most horrible
calumnies against him; and she endeavored to kill her own daughter Rigunthis, by forcing down the
lid of an iron chest upon her neck. Her mode of settling a dispute, according
to Gregory’s account, has in it something almost comically cruel. A feud having
arisen between two families in Tournai, in
consequence of an unfortunate matrimonial alliance, the contending parties were
frequently admonished by Fredegunda to desist from their contention and live in
concord. When her exhortations proved fruitless, she adopted a more effectual
means of pacifying them. “Having invited a great number of persons to a
banquet, she caused the three who were principally concerned in the feud to
occupy the same couch at the table. When the feast had been prolonged till
nightfall, the table was removed, according to the Frankish custom, and the
three guests reclined on the seat on which they had been placed. Their servants
as well as themselves had drunk to excess, and were sleeping wherever they
happened to fall. Three men armed with axes were then placed behind the couch,
and the three occupants struck dead by simultaneous blows”.
MURDER OF PRETEXTATUS.
Her last crime appears to have been the murder of Pretextatus, Bishop of Rouen,
who, on one occasion, sharply rebuked her for her evil life, and exhorted her
to repentance and amendment. The Queen withdrew felle fervens and procured his murder on Easter
Sunday, AD 590, when he was struck down by an assassin while
engaged in the duties of his office. No sooner had he been removed, mortally
wounded, to his bed, than Fredegunda came to visit him with hypocritical
promises to avenge his death, if she could discover the murderer. But the
bishop was not deceived, and when the treacherous queen begged permission to
send a skilful physician to his aid, he replied, “God
hath already ordered me to be summoned from the world; but thou who art found out to be the principal actor in these evil
deeds wilt be accused for ever,
and God will visit my blood upon your head”.
This daring as well as dreadful deed excited great indignation among the
Frankish seigniors; and one of them, who was bold enough to denounce Fredegunda
to her face and to threaten her with the consequences, was soon afterwards
taken off by poison.
To say that she committed many other murders, which want of opportunity
and power alone prevented her from doubling; that she brought false accusations
against all who displeased her; that she ground the poor with intolerable
taxes; that she attempted the life of her benefactor Guntram,
who foolishly and wickedly maintained her cause when she was most in need of
his assistance—will scarcely add one shade to the blackness of the character we
have attempted to portray. A moiety of her crimes would be sufficient to stamp
her as the Messalina and the Borgia of her age.
THEUDEBEBT AND THEODERIC
The traitorous faction of Austrasian seigniors, though for the time kept down by the vigour of Brunhilda and the prudence of Guntram, had never
ceased from their intrigues, and succeeded at last, in AD 599,
in persuading the youthful Theudebert to banish his
grandmother from his court. The persecuted queen, like another Lear, took
refuge with her other grandchild, Theoderic of
Burgundy, and was courteously received by him. It is a remarkable fact, and
speaks well for the young kings, and still better for the aged Brunhilda, that
no breach of friendly intercourse between the two courts took place in
consequence of this event.
The unity of the Frankish kings generally showed itself in joint
undertakings against their neighbors. Theudebert and Theoderic manifested
their mutual affection by attacking their cousin Clotaire, in AD 600,
with their united forces; and they deprived him of all his dominions with the
exception of the country which lies between the Seine, the Isere, and the
ocean. They also directed their arms against the Wascones (or Gascons),
a Spanish people living in the Pyrenees, whom the nature of their country and
their own love of freedom had enabled to remain independent of the Gothic
conquerors. We mention them here because we shall meet with them again in the
time of Charlemagne himself, in whose history they play no unimportant part.
These expeditions seem to prove that the warlike spirit of Clovis had not yet
died out of his descendants, though the physical deterioration of the race had
already proceeded to a great length.
Theudebert, who had banished his
grandmother, and put his wife Bilichildis to
death, that he might marry another woman, is described as being naturally a
cruel prince; while the faults of Theoderic are
ascribed to the evil counsels and influence of Brunhilda. She is accused of
having prevented the young king from marrying, and of encouraging him in a
course of vicious indulgences, in order to retain her influence at his court.
Whether in consequence of the machinations of Brunhilda, or his own preference
for promiscuous concubinage, it is certain that an attempt which the king made
to live in lawful wedlock signally failed. In AD 607 he
formed an alliance with Hermenberga,
daughter of Viteric,
king of the Spanish Visigoths, but sent her back into Spain within the year of
their marriage despoiled of the treasures she had brought into Gaul. The young
king’s conduct on this occasion, though quite in accordance with his character
and habits, is ascribed to the influence of Brunhilda, who is represented as
having purposely rendered Hermenberga odious
in the eyes of her husband, that she might retain the position of which a
lawful and beloved wife must inevitably deprive her. Without at all intending
to exculpate Brunhilda from the sin of ambition and the lust of power (and
without power, be it observed, her life would not have been safe for a moment),
we confess that we receive with great suspicion all that the works of Fredegar and the
other historici contain
respecting her. No one can read these writers without observing the hostile
spirit in which they speak of her, and the satisfaction they derived from
minutely detailing all that can redound to her disadvantage. This malevolent
spirit is the more remarkable when we compare the passages in which the rival
queens are spoken of; for notwithstanding the extraordinary baseness of
Fredegunda, she appears to be viewed by the historians with almost an indulgent
feeling.
The expulsion of Brunhilda by the King of Austrasia and her favorable
reception by his brother was followed, as we have seen, by no immediate breach
of their good understanding.
Yet directly differences arose between them, they were ascribed to their
unfortunate grandmother! Whatever part she may have played in the ensuing
tragedy, it is plain that the main cause of their hostility was, as usual,
mutual jealousy and covetousness. The ceded territory in Alsace and Lorraine,
which Theudebert now wished to reunite to Austrasia,
became an apple of discord between the brothers. Theoderic was compelled by a sudden inroad of
the Austrasians to yield to their demands in AD 610;
in revenge for which he spread a report that Theudebert was not the real son of Childebert, but a changeling. He also bought the
neutrality of Clotaire, who was not ill-pleased to see his rivals exhausting
themselves in their efforts to destroy one another. He then boldly marched into
Austrasia, and was met by Theudebert at the head of
all his forces in the neighborhood of Tull (or Toul), not far from Langres in Champagne. Theudebert was defeated in a great battle which ensued, and
fled through the Vosges mountains to Cologne. He was quickly followed by his
brother, who resolving, in accordance with the advice of Leonisius, Bishop of Mayence, “beatus et Apostolicus” to destroy him
utterly, led his forces through the forest of Ardenne and took post at Zülpich. Theudebert, meanwhile, well aware that he could hope
nothing even from entire submission, collected his scattered powers, and,
having received reinforcements from the Saxon Thuringians, determined to hazard
another battle. The conflict was long and doubtful, and bloody beyond the
measure even of Frankish contests. Yet we can hardly receive literally the
turgid expressions of Fredegar,
who relates that the slaughter was so great, that the dying could not fall to
the ground, but were propped up in an erect position between the heaps of
slain. Theoderic, “Domino proecedente” was again
victorious; and having taken his brother captive, and stripped him of all the
insignia of royalty, sent him to Chalons,
where he was shortly afterwards put to death by the order, as some say, of
Brunhilda. Meroveus, the infant son of the
defeated king, was at the same time dashed to pieces against a rock.
Theoderic now
took full possession of Austrasia, and was meditating an attack, with the
united forces of his two kingdoms, upon Clotaire, when his further progress was
stayed and the aspect of affairs entirely changed, by his sudden decease at
Metz, in AD 613, in the twenty-sixth year of his age.
BRUNHILDA’S REGENCY.
Nothing could be more unpromising for the future peace and strength of
the united kingdoms of Austrasia and
Burgundy than the circumstances in which they were placed at the death of Theoderic. He left behind him
four sons; Sigebert, Childebert, Corvus,
and Meroveus, the eldest of whom was born when
his father was only fourteen years of age. The power of the seigniors had
greatly increased during the late reign, and they now felt themselves strong
enough to come boldly forward in resistance to the royal power.
The extraordinary prolongation of the regency of Brunhilda, who now
began to act as guardian of her great-grandchildren, was above all things
hateful to the powerful and unscrupulous party, who knew her constancy and
energy, and were ever on the watch for an opportunity to feed their vengeance
on her ruin. They feared, or pretended to fear, that the young princes were but
tools in the hands of the queen for the accomplishment of her own will, and the
gratification of her cruelty and pride. They again accused her of purposely
undermining the bodily and mental vigour of her
youthful charges by making them early acquainted with every enervating vice.
The state of anarchy into which the kingdom had gradually been falling was the
more complete at this period, because, while the power of the Merovingians had
been greatly weakened, that of the mayors of the palace was not sufficiently
established to ensure the blessing of a strong government, and to make the personal
character of the king a matter of small importance. The people at large,
indeed, still clung with singular devotion to the Merovingian dynasty; and a
long succession of royal weaklings and idiots, designedly paraded before them
in all their imbecility, was needed to make them untrue to the house under
whose earlier members their vast empire had been acquired, and their military
glory spread throughout the world.
The wish of Brunhilda was to place the eldest of Theoderic’s sons upon the
throne, but the party opposed to her was too strong, and too thoroughly roused
into action by the prospect of a continuance of her regency, to allow her a
chance of success. She had the mortification too, while she herself was
declining in years and strength, of seeing her enemies united under the
leadership of the ablest and most influential men in the empire, Bishop Arnulph
and Pepin; both of whom held subsequently the office of majordomus. The fear and
hatred which Brunhilda inspired among the seigniors were strong enough to
overcome the antipathy existing between the Austrasians and Neustrians; and when the Austrasian seigniors found themselves unable to meet Brunhilda in the field with their own
dependents alone, they did not scruple to call upon Clotaire II for aid, with
the promise of making him monarch of the whole Frankish empire. Their objects
in these traitorous measures are evident: they hoped, on the one hand, to
weaken the monarchy by arraying the different branches of the royal family
against each other; and, on the other, to acquire for themselves, under a ruler
whose residence was in Neustria, the virtual possession of the government of
Austrasia. The strong assurances of support which were made to Clotaire by
Arnulph and Pepin, in the name of their party, were sufficient to induce him to
lead his army to Andernach on
the Rhine; Brunhilda and her great-grandchildren being then at Worms. The aged
queen was not deceived as to the real state of things, and knew too well the
strength which the invading army derived from the treachery of her own
subjects. At first, therefore, she made an appeal to the enemy’s forbearance,
and sending an embassy to the king at Andernach she besought him to retire from the
territory which Theoderic had
bequeathed to his children. But Clotaire was equally well informed with herself
of the state of the Austrasian army, and was not
likely to feel much compunction for the children of one who had threatened to
dethrone him. His answer to Brunhilda’s message
was a significant hint at her want of power to withstand him. “Whatever”, he
sent word back, “the Franks themselves, by the guidance of God, shall determine
upon, I am ready to abide by”.
The answer was understood, and Brunhilda wasted no more time in
negotiations useful only to her enemies. She felt that all was lost but her own
indomitable spirit, which neither age, nor the enmity of foes, nor the
treachery of friends, were able to subdue. She despatched Werner, the Australian Majordomus,
with the young prince Sigebert, across the Rhine, to bring up the Thuringian
Germans, in whose courage and fidelity she had reason to confide. But Werner
himself had been tampered with, and purposely neglected to fulfill his mission.
As a last resource, Brunhilda fled into Burgundy; but there, too, the chief men
both of the Church and the laity, were banded together against her; and readily
entered into a conspiracy with the traitor Werner for the destruction of the
whole royal house of Austrasia. Sigebert, meantime, unconscious perhaps of the
falsehood of those in whom he trusted for the protection of his helpless
boyhood, advanced with his army against Clotaire, and encountered him between
Chalons-sur-Marne and the river Aisne. Many of the Austrasian seigniors were at this time actually in the camp of the enemy, and of those who
followed Sigebert multitudes were eager to desert. At the decisive moment, when
an attempt was made to lead them into action, the Australians turned their
backs without striking a blow, and, marching off the field, retreated to the Saône, closely followed by Clotaire, who had good reasons
for not attacking them. On the river Saône the mutiny
in the camp of Sigebert became open and declared. The boy-king and his brothers
were delivered up by their own soldiers into the hands of their enemies.
Sigebert and Corvus were immediately put
to death; Childebert escaped, and disappears from the page of history;
while Meroveus, on account of some religious
scruples in the mind of Clotaire, who was his godfather, was spared, and
educated in a manner befitting his rank.
Nothing, however, was effected in the eyes of the rebellious and now
triumphant seigniors, while their hated enemy Brunhilda remained alive. Though
she could not at this time have been much less than seventy years old, she was
an object of fear as well as hatred to thousands of mail-clad warriors in the
full flush of victory. While the tragic fate of the young king was being
decided on the banks of the Saône, Brunhilda was
at Urba in
Burgundy, with her grand-daughter Theodelinda. The
defection of Werner and the mutiny of Sigebert’s troops had left her without
resources, and she was delivered up by the Constable Herpo into the hands of Clotaire and her
numerous enemies; who, not content with simply putting her to death, glutted
their eyes upon her agonies during three days of cruel torture. She was led
round the camp upon a camel, and exposed to the derision of the multitude; and
at last being bound hand and foot to a vicious horse, she was left to perish
miserably.
We have already remarked upon the extreme difficulty of forming a fair
judgment of the character of Brunhilda, arising from the unfavorable bias
against her in the minds of the ecclesiastical writers of her day. We must
remember that she had incurred the bitter hostility of the great dignitaries of
the Church, no less than of the lay seigniors, by her endeavors to check the
growth of their inordinate wealth, and to curb their rising spirit of
insubordination. The account given by Fredegar of her conflict with Saint Columban, the Irish missionary, conveys to us a very clear
idea of the feelings of the clergy towards her; and to offend the clergy, the
only chroniclers of that age, was to ensure historical damnation and an
infamous immortality. But in Brunhilda’s case,
the zeal of her enemies outruns their discretion, and the very extravagance of
their charges both excites suspicion and furnishes materials for their
refutation.
Fredegar, in his chronicle, calls her
“another Jezebel”, and says that Clotaire’s inordinate
hatred of her arose from her having killed ten Frankish kings and princes.
Fortunately for the reputation of the accused, Fredegar has mentioned the names of these ten
royal victims; but of these there is not one whose murder has not been ascribed
to some other and far more probable agent, by better authorities than Fredegar. “Clotaire”, says
Montesquieu, “reproached her with the death of ten kings, two of whom he had
put to death himself; the death of some others must be charged upon the fate or
wickedness of another queen; and the nation which had allowed Fredegunda to die
in her bed, and opposed the punishment of her flagrant crimes, should have
beheld with the greatest calmness the sins of a Brunhilda”.
Amidst such palpable misrepresentations, it is difficult to know what to
believe, and hazardous to fix upon her any of the specific crimes with which
she has been charged. To say that she was guilty of intrigue and violence is to
say that she lived and struggled in an age and in a court where these were the
only means of self-preservation. We see that she was ambitious, and crime was
at that period more peculiarly the companion and assessor of power.
Her desire of vengeance was roused at the very commencement of her
career by injuries which only a saint could have forgiven. She had to struggle
through her whole life with antagonists who beset her path with the dagger and
the poison cup, and against whom she could not possibly have held her ground
without sometimes turning their own detestable weapons against themselves. That
she committed many crimes, therefore, which nothing can justify, though the
circumstances of her life may in some degree palliate them, we cannot
reasonably doubt. Yet even through the dark veil which hostile chroniclers have
thrown over the character of Brunhilda, many traces may be discerned of what is
noble, generous, and even tender, in her disposition. Nor can we, while we read
her history, suppress the thought, that she who died a death of torture amidst
exulting foes, had that within her which in better times would have made her
the ornament and the blessing of the country over which she ruled, and ensured
her a niche in the vast catacombs of history among the wise, the great, and
good.
It is evident from the fact that the greatest possible publicity was
given to the horrid spectacle of Brunhilda’s execution,
that the hatred against her was not only intense but general; for otherwise her
enemies would not have run the risk of exciting the sympathy of the multitude
in her nameless sufferings. And yet she would seem to have had all the
qualities calculated to excite the enthusiastic partiality of subjects towards
their rulers. She was the daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, and
great-grandmother of kings; and had, moreover, beauty and intellect enough to
raise a peasant to a throne.
Her indomitable courage, her ceaseless activity, and extraordinary skill
in the conduct of affairs, enabled her to carry on with wonderful success a
conflict with the powerful seigniors, and to postpone for many years the
downfall of the monarchy. Her mental and personal graces attracted the
attention and admiration of Pope Gregory the Great, who praises her for her
Christian devotion, uprightness of heart, skill in government, and
the careful education she bestowed upon her children. That the unhappy
circumstances in which her life was passed had not excluded the feeling of
mercy from her heart she proved by ransoming at her own expense some Longobardian prisoners, and
still more by dismissing unhurt the wretched priest who was sent to betray and
murder her. At a time when intrigue and plunder occupied the thoughts of all
around her, she turned her attention to the erection of public works, which
have been pronounced worthy of a Roman edile or proconsul; and yet thousands of her
own countrymen rejoiced to see her torn limb from limb, and could not satisfy
their rage until they had burned her lacerated body, and scattered her ashes to
the dust!
And thus, after a long series of rebellions, the rising aristocracy
gained their first great victory over the monarchy; we say the monarchy, for in
the battle which made him king of the whole Frankish empire no one was more
truly defeated than the nominal victor, Clotaire II himself. He was, in fact,
an instrument in the hands of the seigniors for the humiliation of the royal
power. It was not because Neustria was stronger than Austrasia and Burgundy,
that the Neustrian king obtained a triple crown; but
because the power of the seigniors was greater than that of the infant kings
and their female guardian.
The chief advantage of every victory naturally falls to the leaders of
the victorious party; and we find that on this occasion the mayors of the
palace were the principal gainers by the change which had taken place. Clotaire
II soon learned that the support he had received was sold, not given; and that,
though he was the ruler of the united Frankish empire his position differed
from, and was far less commanding than, that of Clovis or the first Clotaire.
No sooner was the kingdom of Burgundy transferred to him, than Werner,
the majordomus of
that country, demanded, as the price of his treachery, that he should be
confirmed in his mayoralty, and that Clotaire should bind himself by oath never
to degrade him from that office. Arnulph and Pepin, the leaders of the
revolution in Austrasia, were rewarded in a similar manner, and exercised all
the substantial power of kings under the humble names of mayors of the palace.
It was fortunate for the latter country, and indeed for the whole empire, that
at such a crisis the reins of government had fallen into such able hands. The
singular concord which existed between Arnulph and Pepin, who are peculiarly
interesting to us as the progenitors of the Carolingian race, affords us
evidence that they were actuated by patriotism as well as ambition. Yet they felt
their power, and both used and endeavored to increase it. Anxious for the
substance rather than the external trappings of authority, they wisely sought a
nominal head, under the shadow of whose name they might be less exposed to the
shafts of envy. It was with this view that they advised
Clotaire to grant the greater portion of Austrasia during
his own lifetime to Dagobert, his son by Queen Bertrudis, with the understanding that they should
administer the kingdom for him.
If we could feel any doubts as to the nature and objects of the
revolution effected at this period, the edicts published by Clotaire would be
sufficient to dispel them. In many respects the provisions contained in these
documents resemble those of our own Magna Charta. Their principal object is to
protect the rich and powerful seigniors, both lay and clerical, from the
arbitrary power of the king, and to establish them in the full possession of
all the rights they had usurped, during the dark and troubled period of which
we have been speaking. It is in such periods that a few grow great by the
depression of the many, and it was from the union of the few, for mutual
protection, that those formidable aristocracies of Europe arose which often
proved strong enough to control in turn both king and people.
The Frankish empire, though at this time nominally reunited under one
head, was in reality governed by four virtually independent rulers of whom
Clotaire himself was not the most important.
Werner, as we have seen, was made Majordomus of Burgundy for life; and as such
was both administrator of the royal fiscus and
generalissimo of the army. Austrasia was governed by Arnulph and Pepin in the
name of Dagobert; and even in Neustria, the original portion of Clotaire, and
that in which he had the greatest personal influence, there was a majordomus, on whom the
weight of government principally rested.
During the minority of Dagobert, Austrasia flourished under the wise
administration of his two guardians, who pursued the same object—the welfare of
the country—with a wonderful unanimity. “Even the nations”, says Fredegar, “on the borders of the
Avars (Huns) and the Slaves” sought the aid of the Austrasian mayors against their savage neighbors. It is not wonderful, therefore, that
Dagobert, or rather his advisers, should wish to extend their rule, and to
recover that portion of Austrasia which Clotaire had retained, when, by the
advice of the great seigniors, he had set apart a kingdom for his son.
Dagobert, when summoned by his father to Clichy to marry Gomatrudis, the sister of Clotaire’s second
queen Sichildis, took
the opportunity of claiming those provinces which had belonged to the Austrasian kingdom. On his father’s refusal, a violent
dispute arose between them, and the manner in which it was decided is another
proof of the extraordinary power to which the new aristocracy had attained. The
question was referred to twelve of the Frankish seigniors, among whom was
Arnulph himself, the Bishop of Metz.
The decision, as might have been foreseen, was in favor of Dagobert, who
regained the Vosges and Ardennes in the Netherlands; nor did Clotaire consider
it prudent to oppose the change. The additional strength thus given to the
German portion of the empire was in some degree counterbalanced by the stricter
union of Burgundy and Neustria, (in both of which the Romance element
predominated) consequent upon the death of Werner. By some temporary change in
favor of the monarchy, the exact nature of which it is difficult to ascertain,
but which may have been the result of Werner’s government, the Burgundian
people, or rather the seigniors, consented to forego the right they had
usurped, of choosing another mayor, and remained for a time more immediately
under the government of the king.
DAGOBERT AND CHARIBERT.
In AD 628, about two years after the re-arrangement of
territory by the twelve umpires, as above described, Clotaire II died, having
reigned for nearly half a century. He left behind him another son, Charibert,
by an unknown mother; but Dagobert aspired to reign alone, and summoned his
warlike Austrasians to the field. The Burgundians,
without a head, had little motive to resistance; nor do the Neustrians seem to have interested themselves in favor of Charibert, for they quickly paid
their homage to King Dagobert at Soissons. The unfortunate Charibert, however,
found a friend in his uncle Brodulf,
who endeavored to influence the king in favor of his brother; and Dagobert,
having obtained all that he aimed at without resistance, was induced to resign
a portion of his vast dominions. “Moved with pity”, says the chronicler, “and
following the counsel of the wise, he gave up to Charibert the territory which
lies between the boundaries of the Visigoths and the river Loire (or Garonne
?)”. Nor had Dagobert any occasion to repent his generosity; Charibert, after
extending his boundaries to the south at the expense of the Gascons, died in AD 631, leaving his
brother in undisputed possession of the whole empire.
The influences to which Dagobert had hitherto been subjected were
favorable both to virtue and good government. He had lived chiefly among the
German Franks, whose habits and manners, though rough and even coarse, were far
less corrupt than those of the Gallo-Romans of Neustria and Burgundy. He had
enjoyed the society and counsel of the two wisest, most energetic, and
honorable men of the day, Arnulph and Pepin; by whose skilful measures, and commanding influence in Church and State, he was firmly supported
on the throne. If we may trust to the panegyrics of the chroniclers, respecting
one who was dilator supra modum largissimus of the
churches, the clergy, and the poor, Dagobert was not unworthy of the care
bestowed upon him. He is represented as unwearied in his efforts for the
happiness of his subjects, who were prosperous and grateful. Unfortunately,
however, he was one of those whose character is at the mercy of immediately
surrounding influences. From the wise and good he readily imbibed sentiments of
honor and wisdom, but he was no less sensibly alive to the attractions of evil
example and the allurements of vicious pleasure. On the death of Clotaire he
removed the seat of his government to Paris, a city which, in a greater degree
than any other, bore the distinguishing marks of a bastard Roman civilization.
The Neustrians, jealous of the Austrasians, whom they regarded as barbarians with mingled
contempt and fear, exerted all their arts to captivate the affections of the
young monarch, and to eradicate his German nationality. The first sign of their
success was the dismissal, or rather abandonment, by the king of his queen Gomatrudis, whom he left
at Reuilly in
the neighborhood of Paris, and raised her servant Nanthildis to the throne. And now the artificial calmness of the royal mind, which had but
reflected the purity and wisdom of noble associates, was quickly ruffled by a storm
of ungovernable desires and passions. Nanthildis did
not long maintain herself in the elevation from which she had thrust another.
“Abandoned”, says Fredegar,
“to immoderate luxury, like Solomon, Dagobert had three wives at one time, and
a very great number of concubines”. The names of the contemporary queens were Nanthildis, Wulfegandis,
and Berchildis; the
concubines were so numerous that the chronicler declines to name them. The
extravagant expenditure, rendered necessary by his new mode of life, was
supplied by arbitrary exactions and imposts, which alienated the affections
both of those who suffered, and those who feared to suffer.
Pepin, a man “prudent in all things, full of good counsel and honor, and
esteemed by all for the love of justice which he had instilled into the mind of
Dagobert”, saw and deplored, but could not prevent, the change. His very
virtues, for which his royal pupil had once valued and loved him, were now
regarded with dislike, as a tacit reproof on the immoderate self-indulgence of
the king. Dagobert sought and found in Aega a minister better suited to his altered
heart and life; and Pepin, who had first placed Dagobert on the throne, was for
a time in personal danger from those who hated his virtues, and feared his
ability and influence. “But the love of justice, and the fear of God, to whom
he cleaved with steadfast heart, delivered him from all his troubles”.
THE SLAVS OPPRESSED BY THE HUNS.
It was in this adverse position of affairs, when the king was sunk in
sensual luxury, and the people were murmuring at the ever increasing burdens
which his folly and extravagance laid upon them, that the Franks became
involved in a war with the Slavonic tribes on the eastern boundaries of the
empire. The exact limits which divided the rude nations of antiquity (whose
treaties, where they existed, were expressed in the most vague and general
terms) can never be defined with any great degree of certainty. After the fall
of the Thuringian kingdom, which had formed a barrier to their progress
westward, the Slaves, formerly known by the name of Sarmatians, commenced a
migration across the Elbe, and gradually spread themselves as far as the river
Saale in Thuringia. In the beginning of the sixth century Bohemia was in
possession of a tribe of Slaves called Czechs, who by the middle of the seventh
century had occupied the country between the Culpa and the Mur, and extended
themselves westward beyond the river Salza. A portion of these, under the name of Wends,
who lived on the Baltic, retained their independence until a later period;
those who occupied central Germany, between the Elbe and Saale, and were called
Sorbs, were tributary to the Franks; while the Slaves (in the narrower sense of
the word) of Bohemia, and on the north-west boundary of the Frankish empire,
groaned beneath the intolerable tyranny of the Avars or Huns. This latter
people lived among their more industrious and civilized subjects like
freebooters; never fixing their residence in any one place, but roving to and fro, and compelling those among whom they happened to be to
support them in idleness, and even to place their wives and daughters at their
absolute disposal.
In war the Slavs are said to have been placed in the van of the battle,
while their masters abstained from fighting until they saw their subjects
defeated. Such intolerable oppression would have roused resistance even from
the most timid; the subject Slaves continually rebelled, and their independent
kinsmen, the Baltic Wends, were obliged to wage incessant wars for the
maintenance of their freedom. The efforts of the former had been hitherto
entirely unavailing, and had had no other result than that of fixing the yoke
more firmly on their necks. But the time of their deliverance came at last.
During the reigns of Clotaire and Dagobert a revolution took place among the
Slavonian tribes, the exact nature of which cannot be ascertained from the
confused and meager accounts of the chroniclers. All that we can gather with
any degree of certainty is, that the Slaves and Wends succeeded in freeing
themselves from their rapacious and insolent lords, and in establishing an
independent kingdom; and that they came at this period into collision with the
Franks on their respective borders. According to Fredegar, the Slavonic peoples owed their
deliverance chiefly to a Frank of obscure origin, named Samo, who, when travelling
(about AD 624) among the Slavs or Wends for the sake of
commerce, found this people, and more especially the sons of the Huns by the
Wendish women, in a state of open rebellion. Like our own glorious Clive in
later times, he abandoned his commercial career for the more congenial pursuits
of war and conquest; and having joined the Slaves, he soon enabled them by his
skill and valor to defeat the Avars or Huns in a bloody and decisive battle. So
sensible were the liberated Slaves of what they owed to Samo, and so grateful for his
timely and voluntary service, that they unanimously elected him as their king,
and remained faithful in their allegiance to him for a space of six and thirty
years.
In AD 631, as Fredegar and others relate, some Frankish
merchants were plundered and killed in the territory of Samo by some of his
subjects. Dagobert immediately sent an ambassador, named Sicharius, to demand reparation;
but Samo appears
never to have admitted him to an audience. At last, however, Sicharius managed to get
into the royal presence, by disguising himself and his attendants in the
Slavonic dress, and he then delivered the message entrusted to him. Samo replied, and no doubt
with truth, that injuries had been inflicted by both parties, and that many
cases of the same kind must be inquired into, that mutual satisfaction might be
given. This answer, though dignified and fair, was not what Sicharius expected to hear,
and, losing the command of his temper, he began, “like a foolish ambassador, to
utter words which were not contained in his instructions”. Amongst other things
he said that both Samo and
his subjects owed allegiance and service to the Frankish monarch; to which the
King of the Slaves replied with calmness, “And the territory which we possess
shall be Dagobert’s, and we will be his people,
if he is disposed to be at peace with us”. This soft answer did not turn away
the wrath of the emissary, who was very probably directed to promote the
misunderstanding; and he insultingly replied that it was not possible for
Christians, the servants of God, to contract an alliance with dogs. “If”,
said Samo, with
dignified sarcasm, “ye are the servants of God, and we his dogs, so long as ye
act against Him we have received permission to tear you”.
On the return of his ambassadors, who had suffered so palpable a defeat
in the preliminary war of words, Dagobert summoned his Austrasian troops and sent them against the Slaves in full assurance of success. Ariwald, King of the Longobards, sent an auxiliary force from Italy to serve
with the Franks, who were also joined by the Alemannian or Swabian contingent, and were at first successful. But when the Austrasians were led up to attack a strong place
called Wogatisburc,
where a large army of Wends had been drawn together, they were miserably
defeated and put to flight. This unexpected issue of the contest, is attributed
by the chroniclers to the ill-will of the Austrasians,
who went into the fight without any hearty zeal, on account of their dislike of
Dagobert, and their jealousy of the Neustrians, with
whom the king had so much identified himself. That the victory, however gained,
was real and substantial, is evident from the fact that Derwan, Prince of the Sorbs, who
had been in some degree subject to the Franks, transferred his homage to
King Samo.
In the following year, AD 632, Dagobert again led an
army from Metz to Mayence on the Rhine, with the
intention of attacking the Wendish Slaves, but this expedition was abandoned
without any apparent cause; unless we can believe that Dagobert, at the head of
a formidable army, retired from the country without striking a blow, because
ambassadors from the Saxons came to offer their assistance on condition of
being excused from paying their yearly tribute of Five hundred cows.
SIGEBERT III, KING OF
AUSTRASIA.
The true reason of these repeated failures is to be sought in the
disaffection of the Austrasian seigniors, who were
not inclined to shed their blood in company with Neustrians,
for one whom they now regarded exclusively in the light of a Neustrian King. The change from the dignified and
advantageous position which they had occupied under the able administration of the chiefs of their own order,
Pepin and Arnulph, to that of distant and little regarded subjects of a monarch
who spent his life at Paris, was more than their proud and ambitious spirits
could endure. They obeyed the royal ban unwillingly, when summoned to the field;
they defended even their own territory in Thuringia with sullen feebleness; and
the Slaves made continual accessions to their territory at the expense of the
Frankish empire. The eyes of Dagobert or his advisers were at last forced open
to the real condition of affairs, and to the danger which threatened them from
the east. They saw that the Austrasian seigniors were
determined to be ruled by their own order, though they still preferred to do so
in the name of a Merovingian king. To disregard their wishes was to risk, not
only the loss of Thuringia, but the dismemberment of the empire. In AD 632
therefore, just after the lesson he had received in the abortive expedition
above described, Dagobert summoned the grandees of his empire both temporal and
spiritual to Metz; and there, with the general consent of his council,
appointed the infant Sigebert III his son by Ragnetruda—King of Austrasia. By this act, the
royal authority was once more transferred to the hands of the seigniors, and
the Merovingian dynasty tottered to its fall.
The natural and proper arrangement would have ken to make Pepin the
guardian of the infant king and administrator of the kingdom; but the jealousy
of the Parisian court was too strong to allow of this concession. While
therefore Cunibert,
Bishop of Cologne, was sent with Sigebert into Austrasia, Pepin was detained at
the court of Dagobert, as a sort of hostage. From this time the Austrasians appear to have defended their borders against
the Wends with energy and success.
This arrangement was unwillingly made by the Neustrian court, under a sense of the necessity of conciliating the German subjects of
the empire. It had become evident that, of the Frankish kingdoms, Austrasia was
by far the strongest; while the Neustrians therefore
yielded on this occasion from necessity and fear, they were anxious to provide
a counterpoise to the Germanism of
Austrasia, by more closely and permanently uniting the countries in which
Gallo-Romanism was predominant. The birth of Clovis (the second son of Dagobert
by Nanthildis) appeared to afford the means of
carrying out their views; in which Dagobert himself, from his predilection for Neustrian luxury and refinement, was inclined to
sympathize. “By the counsel and advice of the Neustrians”,
as the chronicler expressly relates, and the consent of the Austrasians (who had so lately carried their own point), Clovis II was declared heir of the
united kingdoms of Neustria and Burgundy,
while Sigebert III was confirmed in the possession of all that the former Kings
of Austrasia had held, with one small exception. “This arrangement”, we
are told, “the Austrasians were compelled by their
fear of Dagobert to sanction, whether they would or no”. Nevertheless, it was
strictly observed on the death of Dagobert, which took place in AD 638.
THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE
We may almost consider Dagobert as the last of the Merovingian monarchs,
since he is the last who really exercised anything like independent royal
authority. The name of king, indeed, was retained by his longhaired
descendants for several generations, but the bearers of it were either children
in years, or so weak in intellect from early debauchery and a neglected
education, as to be the mere tools and puppets of their own servants. These
shadowy forms, which excite in our minds both pity and contempt, are known in
history as the Rois fainéans, a title which well
expresses their inactivity and insignificance, and the merely nominal nature of
their rule. While the storms of action rage around them, they are hidden from
our gaze in the recesses of a court, half nursery, half harem.
The iron scepter of the first Clovis, which his degenerate successors
had dropped from their listless hands to raise the wine-cup or caress the
harlot, was seized with a vigorous grasp by men who exercised the loftiest
functions under an almost menial name. At this period the real direction of
affairs was left to the Majores-Domus, or Mayors of the Palace, whose power is
seen continually to increase, till, in the hands of the Carolingians, it
becomes imperial; while that of the Salian monarchs, already greatly weakened,
declines from year to year, till they become the mere puppets of an annual show.
We shall therefore take this opportunity of giving a short account of
the origin and nature of the office of Major-Domus—the
parasitical growth which sapped the strength of the Merovingian throne. And in
the subsequent portion of this preliminary history we shall transfer our chief
attention from the nominal to the actual rulers, and endeavor to relate, with
all possible conciseness, the civil and military transactions of the mayors;
and more particularly of those among them who, great in themselves, enjoy
additional fame as progenitors of Charlemagne.
That the successful Imperator of an army should grow into an Emperor, or
ruler of the nation,—that a Caesar should become a Kaiser,—seems natural
enough: but the humble and peaceful office originally designated by the words
Major-Domus seems capable of no such
development. The ideas connected with it are little suited to the proud and
powerful Frankish warriors, who, under that simple title, performed the highest
functions of government, achieved great conquests at the head of powerful
armies, dethroned an ancient dynasty of kings, and in their posterity gave
successors to the Emperors of the West. This discrepancy between the name and
the thing it denotes has excited general remark, and given rise to many learned
and ingenious theories.
In a former part of this work we have endeavored to trace the gradual
progress of the royal power among the Franks, and the simultaneous decline of
those popular institutions by which liberty is sustained; and which, at an
earlier period, existed among the Franks in common with other German peoples.
It is important to keep this development in view during the present inquiry,
because, as we shall see, the power of the mayors first rose with that of the
kings, and then upon it.
The domestic condition of the Franks was greatly changed by their
conquests in Gaul during the sixth century. As the result of a few fortunate
battles, they found themselves in possession of well-stocked houses and fertile
lands; and though they were too warlike themselves to settle down as
cultivators of the soil, they contrived, by means of others, to derive
considerable wealth from their estates. The same conquests which brought rich
booty to all the Franks, secured, as we have seen, to the kings an enormous
increase both of wealth and power. They still, indeed, in times of peace,
continued to lead the life of great landed proprietors, passing in their rude
carriages drawn by oxen from one of their estates to another, and consuming in
turn the fruits of each; but the sudden and enormous addition to their means
naturally led to an increase in the number of their dependents and a greater
degree of external splendor in their mode of life. Even in their simplest
state, as described by Tacitus, they must, like other wealthy men, have had not
only numerous menials and slaves, domestic and agricultural, but overseers of
the various departments of their household to provide them with all things
necessary for their dignity, convenience, and pleasure.
At the head of these, occupying the exact position of a house-steward in
a nobleman’s family, was the majordomus,
whose purely domestic character is proved by the fact that he is ranked after
the Counts and the Domestici. The nature
of the count’s office will be explained elsewhere;
and the domestici, according to Loebell,
were the more distinguished of the Comitatus, who fought about the person of
the king. Besides the majordomus we
find mentioned as members of the royal household, the Referendarius (Chancellor),
the Comes Palatii (Judge at the Royal Tribunal), Cubicularius and Camerarii(Chamberlain
and Overseers of the Treasury), and the Comes Stabuli (Master
of the Horse). These officials, some of whom appear to have been appointed in
imitation of the practice of the Byzantine court, were originally mere personal
attendants on the king, who could dismiss them at pleasure. He was not even
bound to select them from the free men, but could
raise at will a freedman or a slave. It is an important consideration in this
place that there was no class of hereditary nobility to limit the royal choice
of servants. All history teaches us that the most sudden changes of fortune
take place, not under a republic, or constitutional monarchy, but under
arbitrary rulers, where the royal favor is the only recognized distinction—where
a single word can shorten the long and toilsome path by which, under freer
governments, merit seeks its appropriate reward.
The fact that the mayors of the palace are mentioned only three times by
Gregory of Tours is a proof that in his age they had not acquired political
importance. Yet when we come to inquire more particularly into their position
and functions, we shall find in their lowly office a germ of power, which
favorable circumstances might easily foster into luxuriant growth. As stewards
of the king’s estates, and overseers of his personal attendants and servants,
the dignity of their office would be in proportion to the extent of the former
and the number of the latter.
The conquest of Gaul, which did so much for royalty, must have raised
the majordomus from
a rich man’s house-steward to a kind of chancellor of the exchequer; whose
actual power was considerable, and whose indirect influence, as the immediate
agent in the distribution of royal favors, was only limited by his ability to
take advantage of his position. It was through him that money, lands, and
offices were distributed among the numerous warriors, who in those unsettled
times assembled round a rich and warlike king. To the provincials, more
particularly, who had been accustomed to the low intrigues of a Roman court,
and had learned to seek the favor of those who in any relation stood near the
throne, the majordomus would
appear a man of great importance. His means of influence would be further
increased by the selfish liberality of those who sought his aid, or received
advantages through his hands.
FORMATION OF THE ROYAL COUNCIL.
And thus, as the royal power increased, the position of the mayors
continued to improve. As the popular assemblies on the Campus Martius declined in importance, no small share of the
power they had once possessed was transferred to the attendants of the king.
Energetic rulers needed not, and greatly disliked, the free discussions of the
assembled people; and weak and bad ones naturally feared them. Yet all men
shrink from the sole responsibility of important decisions; even a Xerxes
summons his noble slaves and asks their counsel, though he lets them know that
he is free to act against it. And the Frankish king was glad at times to
consult the more dignified of his servants, his greatest captains, and his most
holy and learned priests. From such elements a royal council was gradually
formed, which soon obtained a kind of prescriptive right to be heard on
great occasions, and played an important part in Frankish history. In this
assembly the majordomus,
as being nearest to the king’s person, and always on the spot, naturally took a
leading part, when his character and abilities enabled him to do so. The
importance of this royal council may be better estimated when we consider of
whom it was composed.
There were, in the first place, the Courtiers, i.e., the holders of
offices about the king, of whom the majordomus was
the first. Secondly, the Antrustiones, whose
character and position we have elsewhere defined. Thirdly, a great number of
dependent rulers, as the hereditary Dukes of Bavaria and Alemannia, who were
allowed to retain their power under the protection of the Frankish monarchs.
Fourthly, the Patricii of Burgundy, Massilia, and Ripuaria. Fifthly, the Dukes, Counts, Thungini,
of whom the last mentioned were appointed by the king as governors of provinces
and gaus. And, in the last place,
the great dignitaries of the Church; who, in proportion as they became more and
more secularized by their wealth, went more frequently to court, and made
themselves welcome and influential there, by their superior learning, splendor,
and refinement.
In this great assembly of dependent governors, antrustiones,
and bishops, which soon became a regularly constituted council, the majordomus presided as the representative,
though a humble one, of the king. As such, a portion of the executive power
fell at all times into his hands; and during a minority of the crown his
influence was in exact proportion to his tact in making use of his favorable
position, and his ability to maintain his ground amid the intrigues and
struggles of opposing factions.
We need not be surprised to find that, to the civil duties of the majordomus, was added the
command of the royal retinue. In the times of which we speak there were no
civilians except ecclesiastics (and even these, as we know, were not entirely
destitute of that military spirit which was a necessity and a characteristic of
the age); and the mayors of the palace would have had but little chance of
improving or even maintaining their position, of satisfying their royal master,
or controlling his household, had they not been both able and willing to play a
prominent part upon the battlefield.
The military duties of the mayoralty naturally became more arduous and
important when the monarchs themselves were deficient in warlike qualities; and
hence the office was generally bestowed upon some distinguished warrior. This
was the case even while the mayors continued to be the nominees and servants of
the king; for it was to their majordomus,
and the more immediate dependents of the crown whom he commanded, that the
monarch looked for support in his contests with the rising aristocracy. While
the monarchy was strong, we find the mayors the steady upholders of the royal
power. But in the anarchic period which followed the death of
Sigebert I, the office of mayor, like every other honorable post, became the
subject of a scramble, and fell into the hands of those great proprietors,
whose encroachments on the royal prerogative it was designed to repel.
The importance of the position occupied by the mayor, and the great
advantages he was able to bring to whatever side he espoused, were too evident
to be overlooked by the enemies of the monarchy; and accordingly we find that
one of the first uses made by the Austrasian seigniors of their victory over Brunhilda, was to make the mayoralty elective,
and independent of the crown. This important change took place in both the
great divisions of the Frankish empire, but many circumstances tended to render
the development of the power of the mayors far more rapid and complete in
Australia than in Neustria.
In the latter, kingdom the resistance which the seigniors could offer to
the crown, was weaker, both because they were themselves in a less degree
homogeneous than in the German portion of the empire, and because they could
not reckon upon the sympathy and aid of the Romano-Gallic population. In
Austrasia the case was different. Even there indeed, though the nation was
mainly German, the tendencies of the court were decidedly Romance; and not
unnaturally so, for among the Roman provincials was found the external
civilization—the grace of manner, the decorative arts of life, the skill in the
refined indulgence of the passions, which throw a brilliant light around a
throne, and are calculated to engage the affections of its occupants. But the
Romanizing leanings of the court were not shared in by the Austrasian seigniors, or the people at large; and the struggle between the monarchy and
the nascent aristocracy in Austrasia was embittered by national antipathies.
We have already seen the issue of the contest in favor of the seigniors,
and their victory must be regarded as another triumph of the Germans over the
Gallo-Romans. The mayors of the palace, whose consequence had been greatly
increased during frequent and long minorities, understood the crisis; and,
placing themselves at the head of the great landed proprietors of Austrasia,
succeeded in depriving the Merovingian kings of the realities of power, while
they left them its external shows.
Yet, favorable as had hitherto been the circumstances of the times to
the rising power of the mayors, it needed another remarkable coincidence to
raise them to royal and imperial thrones. Notwithstanding the influence they
had acquired at the end of the sixth century, and the powerful support they
received from the great proprietors, banded together in resistance to the
crown, the struggle was a long and doubtful one; though the champion of
monarchy was a woman. Fear is the mother of cruelty; and bloody as were the
dreadful times in which Brunhilda lived, her enemies would never have taken
such a fiendish delight in her sufferings, had not their hatred been rendered
more intense by previous doubts and fears—had they not been rendered delirious
with the joy of an unlooked-for success. Had the Merovingian stock continued to
produce a succession of able men—had it even sent forth one in whom the fire of
Clovis burned—the steady though slumbering loyalty of the people might have
been roused, the factious seigniors destroyed in detail, and the career of the
king-making mayors brought to a bloody termination at another Barnet.
THE MAYORS ABSOLUTE RULERS.
The actual state of things was, as we have seen, the very reverse of all
this. Instead of a vigorous young warrior like our own Edward IV, the Frankish
nobles had boys and women to contend with. For a long period the scepter was in
the hands of a succession of minors, who met with the foulest play from those
who should have been their guardians. Precocious by nature, and exposed to the
allurements of every enfeebling indulgence and hurtful vice, they gladly
yielded up the all too heavy scepter to the rude hands of their warlike
keepers, and received in exchange the cap and bells of the jester and the fool.
And while the Merovingian race in its decline is notorious in history as having
produced an unexampled number of imbecile monarchs, the family which was destined
to supplant them was no less wonderfully prolific in warriors and statesmen of
the highest class. It is not often that great endowments are transmitted even
from father to son, but the line from which Charlemagne sprang presents to our
admiring gaze an almost uninterrupted succession of five remarkable men, within
little more than a single century. Of these the first three held the mayoralty
of Austrasia; and it was they who prevented the permanent establishment of
absolute power on the Roman model, and secured to the German population of
Austrasia an abiding victory over that amalgam of degraded Romans and corrupted
Gauls, which threatened to leaven the European world. To them, under
Providence, we owe it that the centre of Europe is at
this day German, and not Gallo-Latin.
From this brief sketch of the origin and progress of the mayors of the
palace, who play so important a part in the succeeding age, we return to the
point in the general history from which the digression was made.
On the death of Dagobert, AD 638, his son, Clovis II, a
child of six years old, succeeded him. During his minority the government of
Neustria and Burgundy was carried on by his mother Nanthildis,
and the Major-Domus Aega, while Pepin and others shared the supreme
power in Austrasia. Pepin died AD 639 or 640, and a long and
ferocious contest ensued for the vacant mayoralty, which was finally taken
possession of by Pepin’s own son Grimoald.
DARING CONDUCT OF GRIMOALD.
So low had the power of the nominal monarchs already sunk, that, on the
death of Sigebert III, in AD 656, Grimoald ventured to shear the locks of the rightful heir, Dagobert II, and, giving out
that he was dead, sent him to Ireland; he then proposed his own son for the
vacant throne, under the pretence that Sigebert had
adopted him. But the time was not yet ripe for so daring an usurpation, nor
does Grimoald appear to have been the man to take the
lead in a revolution. Both the attempt itself, and its miserable issue, go to
prove that the son of Pepin did not inherit the wisdom and energy of the
illustrious stock to which he belonged. The King of Burgundy and Neustria,
pretending to acquiesce in the accession of Grimoald’s son, summoned the father to Paris,
and caused him to be seized during his journey by some Franks—who are
represented as being highly indignant at his presumption—and put to death.
The whole Frankish empire was thus once more united, at least in name,
under Clovis II (who also died in AD 656), and under his son
and successor, Clotaire III, whose mother, Balthildis, an Anglo-Saxon by birth, administered
the kingdom with great ability and success. But the interests and feelings of
the German provinces were too distinct from those of Burgundy and Neustria to
allow of their long remaining even nominally under one head. The Austrasians were eager to have a king of their own, and
accordingly another son of Clovis was raised to the throne of Austrasia under
the title of Childeric II, with Wulfoald as
his majordomus.
At the death of Clotaire III in Neustria (in AD 670),
the whole empire was thrown into confusion by the ambitious projects of Ebroin, his majordomus, who sought to
place Theoderic III, Clotaire’s youngest
brother, who was still a mere child, on the throne, that he might continue to
reign in his name. Ebroin appears
to have proceeded towards his object with too little regard for the opinions
and feelings of the other seigniors, who rose against him and his puppet king,
and drove them from the seat of power. The successful conspirators then offered
the crown of Neustria to Childeric II, King of Austrasia, who immediately
proceeded to take possession, while Ebroin sought
refuge in a monastery.
Childeric ascended the Neustrian throne
without opposition; but his attempts to control the seigniors, one of whom,
named Badilo, he is said to have scourged, gave rise
to a formidable conspiracy; and he was soon afterwards assassinated, together
with his queen and son at Chelles. Wulfoald escaped with difficulty, and returned to
Austrasia. Another son of Childeric, Childebert III, was then raised upon the
shield by the seigniors, while the royal party brought forward Theoderic III from the monastery to which he had retired,
and succeeded in making good his claim. The turbulent and unscrupulous but able Ebroin ventured once more to leave his place of
refuge, and by a long series of the most treacherous murders, and by setting up
a pretender—as Clovis, a son of Clotaire III—he succeeded (in AD 673
or 674) in forcing himself upon Theoderic as
Major-Domus of Neustria.
EBROIN’S REBELLIONS.
In the meantime Dagobert II, whom Grimoald had
sent as a child to Ireland, and who had subsequently found a faithful friend in
the well-known St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York, was
recalled and placed on the Austrasian throne. But the
restored prince soon (in AD 678) fell a victim to the
intrigues of Ebroin,
and the Neustrian faction among the seigniors, who
aimed at bringing the whole empire under their own arbitrary power. Nor does it
seem at all improbable that the ability and audacity of Ebroin might have enabled
them to carry out their designs, had not Austrasia possessed a leader fully
equal to the emergency. Pepin, surnamed of Heristal from a castle belonging to his family
in the neighborhood of Liege, was the son of Ansegisus by Begga, the illustrious daughter of Pepin of Landen. This great man, who proved himself worthy of his
grandsire and his mother, was at this time associated with Duke Martin in the
government of Austrasia, which up to AD 630 had been
administered by Wulfoald.
Martin and Pepin summoned their followers to arms to meet the expected attack
of the Neustrians. In the first instance, however,
the Austrasians were surprised by the activity
of Ebroin, who fell
upon them before they had completed their preparations, and totally defeated
them in the neighborhood of Lucofaus.
Martin fled to the town of Laon; and the artifices by which his enemies lured
him from this retreat to his destruction are worthy of notice, as giving us a
remarkable picture of the manners of the period in general, and of the sad
state of the Church in particular. Ebroin,
hearing that his intended victim had reached a place of safety, despatched Agilbert,
Bishop of Paris, and Probus, Bishop of Rheims,
to persuade Martin to repair to the Neustrian camp.
In order to dispel the apprehensions with which he listened to them, these holy
men went through the not unusual ceremony of swearing upon a receptacle
containing sacred relics, that he should suffer no injury by following their
advice. The bishops, however, to save themselves from the guilt of perjury, had
taken care that the vessels, which were covered, should be left empty. Martin,
whom they omitted to inform of this important fact, was satisfied with their
oaths, and accompanied them to Ecri,
where he and his followers were immediately assassinated, without, as was
thought, any detriment to the faith of the envoys! Pepin, however, was neither
to be cajoled nor frightened into submission, and soon found himself at the
head of a powerful force, consisting in part of Neustrian exiles, whom the tyranny of Ebroin had
ruined or offended.
A collision seemed inevitable, when the position of affairs was suddenly
changed by the death of Ebroin,
who was assassinated in AD 681 by Hermenfried,
a distinguished Neustrian Frank. Waratto followed him in the
mayoralty of Neustria, and seemed inclined to live on friendly terms with
Pepin; but Gislemar,
his son, who headed the party most hostile to Pepin, succeeded in getting
possession of the government for a time, and renewed the war against the Austrasians.
Gislemar’s death (in AD 684),
which the annalists attribute
to the Divine anger, restored Waratto to
his former power; and hostilities ceased for a time. When Waratto also died, about
two years after his undutiful son, he was succeeded by Berchar, his son-in-law, whom the annalist pithily
describes as “statura parvus, intellect modicus”. The insolent
disregard which this man showed to the feelings and wishes of the most powerful Neustrians, induced many of them to make common cause
with Pepin, to whom they are said to have bound themselves by hostages.
In AD 687 Pepin was strong enough to assume the offensive;
and, yielding to the entreaties of the Neustrian refugees, he sent an embassy to Theoderic III
to demand the restoration of the exiles to their confiscated lands. The King of
Neustria, prompted by Berchar,
his majordomus,
haughtily replied that he would come himself and fetch his runaway slaves.
Pepin then prepared for war, with the unanimous consent of the Austrasian seigniors, whose wishes he scrupulously
consulted. Marching through the Silva Carbonaria (in Belgium), he entered the Neustrian territory, and took post at Testri on the river
Somme Theoderic and Berchar also collected a
large army and marched to meet the invaders. The two armies encamped in sight
of each other near the village of Testri,
on opposite sides of the little river Daumignon, the Neustrians on the southern and the Austrasians on the northern
bank. Whether from policy or a higher motive, Pepin displayed great
unwillingness, even then, to bring the matter to extremities; and, sending
emissaries into the camp of Theoderic,
he once more endeavored to negotiate; demanding, amongst other things, that the
property of which the churches had been “despoiled by wicked tyrants” should be
restored to them. He promised that, if his conditions of peace were accepted
and the effusion of kindred blood prevented, he would give the king a large
amount of silver and gold.
BATTLE OF TESTRI.
The wise and humane reluctance of Pepin was naturally construed by Theoderic and his
little-minded mayor into fear, and distrust of his army, which was inferior to
their own in numbers: a haughty answer was returned, and all negotiations
broken off. Both sides then prepared for the morrow’s battle. Pepin, having
passed the night in forming his plans, crossed the river before daybreak and
drew up his army to the east of Theoderic’s position,
that the rising sun might blind the enemy. The spies of Theoderic reported that the Austrasian camp was deserted, on which the Neustrians were led out to pursue the flying foe. The
mistake of the scouts was soon made clear by the vigorous onset of Pepin; and
after a fierce but brief combat the Neustrians were
totally defeated, and Theoderic and Berchar fled from the
field. The latter was slain by his own followers: the king was taken prisoner,
but his life was mercifully spared.
The battle of Testri is
notable in Frankish history as that in which the death-stroke was given to the
Merovingian dynasty, by an ancestor of a far more glorious race of monarchs.
“From this time forward”, says the chronicler Erchambertus, “the kings began to have only the
royal name, and not the royal dignity”. A very striking picture of the Rois Fainéans has been
handed down to us by Einhard, the friend and secretary of Charlemagne, in his
famous life of his royal master. “The race of the Merovingians”, he says, “from
which the Franks were formerly accustomed to choose their kings, is generally
considered to have ended with Chilperic; who, at the
command of the Roman Pontiff Stephen, was deposed, shorn of his locks, and sent
into a monastery. But although the stock died out with him, it had long been
entirely without life and vigour, and had no
distinction beyond the empty title of king; for the authority and government
were in the hands of the highest officers of the palace, who were called majores-domus, and had the entire administration of
affairs. Nothing was left to the king, except that, contenting himself with the
mere royal name, he was allowed to sit on the throne with long hair and unshorn
beard, to play the part of a ruler, to hear the ambassadors from whatever part
they might come, and at their departure to communicate to them the answers
which he had been taught or even commanded to make, as if by his own authority.
Besides the worthless title of king, and a scanty maintenance, which the majordomus meted out
according to his pleasure, the king possessed only one farm, and that by no
lucrative one, on which he had a dwelling-house and a few servants, just
sufficient to supply his most urgent necessities.
Wherever he had to go, he traveled in a carriage drawn by a yoke of oxen
and driven by a cowherd in rustic fashion. It was thus
that he went to the palace, to the public assembly of the people, which met
every year for the good of the kingdom; after which
he returned home. But the whole administration of the state, and
everything which had to be regulated or executed, either at home or abroad, was
carried on by the mayors”.
PEPIN OF HERISTAL SOLE MAYOR.
The whole power of the three kingdoms was thus suddenly thrown into the
hands of Pepin, who showed in his subsequent career that he was equal to the
far more difficult task of keeping, by his wisdom and moderation, what he had
gained by the vigour of his intellect and his
undaunted valor. He, too, was happily free from the little vanity which takes
more delight in the pomp than in the realities of power, and, provided he
possessed the substantial authority, was contented to leave the royal name to
others. He must have felt himself strong enough to do what his uncle Grimoald had vainly attempted, and his grandson happily
accomplished; but he saw that by grasping at the shadow he might lose the
substance. He was surrounded by proud and suspicious seigniors, whose jealousy
would have been more excited by his taking the title, than by his exercising
the powers of a king; and, strange though it may seem, the reverence for the
ancient race, and the notion of their exclusive and inalienable rights, were
far from being extinguished in the breasts of the common people.
By keeping Theoderic upon
the throne and ruling in his name, he united both reason and prejudice in
support of his government. Yet some approach was made—though probably not by
his own desire—towards acknowledged sovereignty in the case of Pepin. He was
called Dux et Princeps Francorum, and the years of his
office were reckoned, as well as those of the king, in all public documents.
Having fixed the seat of his government in Austrasia, as the more German and
warlike portion of his dominions, he named dependents of his own, and
subsequently his two sons, Drogo and Grimoald, to rule as mayors in the two other divisions of
the empire.
He gave the greatest proof of his power and popularity by restoring the
assemblies of the Campus Martius, a purely
German institution, which under the Romanising Merovingian monarchs had gradually
declined. At these annual meetings, which were held on the 1st of March,
the whole nation assembled for the purpose of discussing measures for the
ensuing year. None but a ruler who was conscious of his own strength, and of an
honest desire for the welfare of his people, would have voluntarily submitted
himself and his actions to the chances of such an ordeal. As soon as he had
firmly fixed himself in his seat, and secured the submission of the envious
seigniors, and the love of the people, who looked to him as the only man who
could save them from the evils of anarchy, he turned his attention to the
re-establishment of the Frankish empire in its full extent.
The neighboring tribes, which had with difficulty, and for the most
part imperfectly, been subdued by Clovis and his successors, were
ready to seize upon every favorable occasion of ridding themselves of the hated
yoke. Nor were the poor imbecile boys who bore the name of kings, or the
turbulent mayors and seigniors, who were wholly occupied with plotting and
counterplotting, railing and fighting, against one another, at all in a
position to call the subject states to account, or to excite in them the desire
of being incorporated with an empire harassed and torn by intestine
dissensions. The Frankish empire was in process of dissolution, and all the
more distant tribes, as the Bavarians, the Alemannians,
Frisians, Bretons, and Gascons, had virtually recovered their independence. But
this partial decline of the Frankish power was simply the result of
misgovernment, and the domestic feuds which absorbed the martial vigour of the nation; and by no means indicated the decline
of a military spirit in the Frankish people. They only needed a centre of union and a leader worthy of them, both of which
they found in Pepin, to give them once more the hegemony over all the German
tribes, and prepare them for the conquest of Europe. The Frisians were subdued,
or rather repressed for a time, in AD 697, after a gallant
resistance under their king Ratbod; and about twelve
years afterwards we find the son of Pepin, Grimoald,
forming a matrimonial alliance with Theudelinda,
daughter of the Frisian monarch; a fact which plainly implies that Pepin
desired to cultivate the friendship of his warlike neighbors. The Suabians, or Alemanni, were also attacked and defeated by
Pepin in their own territories; but their final subjection was completed by his
son Carl Martel.
The wars carried on by Pepin with the above-mentioned nations, to which
in this place we can only briefly allude, occupied him nearly twenty years; and
were greatly instrumental in preserving peace at home, and consolidating the
foundations of the Carolingian throne. The stubborn resistance he met with from
the still heathen Germans, was animated with something of that zeal, against
which his great descendant Charlemagne had to contend in his interminable Saxon
wars; for the adoption of Christianity, which was hated, not only as being
hostile to the superstitions of their forefathers, but on account of the heavy
taxes by which it was accompanied, was always made by Pepin the indispensable
condition of mercy and peace. But, happily for the cause of Gospel truth, other
means were used for the spread of Christianity than the sword and the scourge;
and the labors of many a zealous and self-sacrificing missionary from Ireland
and England, served to convince the rude German tribes, that the
warrior-priests whom they had met on the battlefield, and the greedy
tax-gatherers who infested their homes, were not the true ambassadors of the
Prince of Peace. And Pepin, who was by no means a mere warrior, was well aware
of the value of these peaceful efforts; and afforded zealous aid to all who
ventured their lives in the holy cause of human improvement and salvation. The
civil governors whom he established in the conquered provinces were directed to
do all in their power to promote the spread of Christianity by peaceful means;
and, to give effect to his instructions, Pepin warned them that he should hold
them responsible for the lives of his pious missionaries.
During these same twenty years, in which Pepin was playing the important
and brilliant part assigned to him by Providence, the pale and bloodless
shadows of four Merovingian kings flit gloomily across the scene. We know
little or nothing of them except their names, and the order in which they
followed each other. Theoderic III
died AD 691, and was succeeded by Clovis III, who reigned
till AD 695 and was followed by Childebert III. On the death
of Childebert in AD 711, Pepin raised Dagobert III to the
nominal throne, where he left him when he himself departed from the scene of
his labors and triumphs; and this is really all that we feel called upon to say
of the descendants of the conquerors of Gaul and founders of the Western
Empire; “inclitum et notum olim, nunc tantum auditur!”.
PEPIN MAKES HIS SONS MAYORS. HIS
DEATH.
The extraordinary power which Pepin exercised at a period when law was
weak, and authority extended no further than the sword could reach; when the
struggles of the rising feudal aristocracy for independence had convulsed the
empire and brought it to the verge of anarchy, sufficiently attests the ability
and courage, the wisdom and moderation, with which he ruled. His triumphs over
the ancient dynasty, and the Neustrian faction, were
far from being the most difficult of his achievements. He had to control the
very class to which he himself belonged; to curb the turbulent spirits of the
very men who had raised him to his proud pre-eminence; and to establish regal
authority over those by whose aid he had humbled the ancient kings: and all
this he succeeded in doing by the extraordinary influence of his personal
character.
So firmly indeed had he established his government, and subdued the
wills of the envious seigniors by whom he was surrounded, that even when he
showed his intention of making his power hereditary in his family, they dared
not, at the time, oppose his will. On the death of Norbert, majordomus at the
court of Childebert III, Pepin—in all probability without even consulting the
seigniors, in whom the right of election rested—appointed his second son Grimoald to the vacant office. To his eldest son Drogo he had already given the Mayoralty of Burgundy,
with the title of Duke of Campania. But though they dared not make any
opposition at the time, it is evident from what followed that the fear of Pepin
alone restrained the rage they felt at this open usurpation.
In AD 714, when Pepin’s life
was drawing to a close, and he lay at Jopil near Liege upon a bed of sickness,
awaiting patiently his approaching end, the great vassals took heart, and
conspired to deprive his descendants of the mayoralty. They employed the usual
means for effecting their purpose, treachery and murder. Grimoald was assassinated, while praying in the Church of St. Lambert at Jopil, by a Frisian of the name of Rantgar,
who relied, no doubt, on the complicity of the seigniors and the weakness of
Pepin for impunity. But the conspirators had miscalculated the waning sands of
the old warrior’s life, and little knew the effect which the sight of his son’s
blood would have upon him. He suddenly recovered from the sickness to which he
seemed to be succumbing. Like another Priam, he once more seized his
unaccustomed arms, though, unlike the royal Trojan, he used them with terrible
effect. After taking an ample revenge upon the murderers of his son, and
quenching the spirit of resistance in the blood of the conspirators, he
was so far from giving up his purpose, or manifesting any consciousness of
weakness, that he nominated the infant and illegitimate son of Grimoald, as if by hereditary right, to the joint mayoralty
of Burgundy and Neustria—an office which the highest persons in the land would
have been proud to exercise. By his very last act, therefore, he showed the
absolute mastery he had obtained, not only over the “do-nothing” kings, but
over the factious seigniors, who shrank in terror before the wrath of one who
had, as it were, repassed the gates of death, to hurl destruction on their
heads. His actual demise took place in the same year, on the 16th of
December, AD 714.
Pepin had two wives, the first of whom, Plectrude, bore him two sons, Drogo and Grimoald, neither
of whom survived their father. In AD 688 he married a second
wife, the “noble and elegant” Alpais,
though Plectrudis was
still alive. From this second marriage sprang the real successor of the Pepins, whom his father named in his own language Carl,
and who is renowned in history as Carl Martel, the bulwark of Christendom, the
father of kings and emperors.
Our estimate of the personal greatness of the Carolingian mayors is
greatly raised when we observe that each of them in turn, instead of taking
quiet possession of what his predecessors had won, has to reconquer his position
in the face of numerous, powerful and exasperated enemies. It was so with Pepin
of Landen, with Pepin of Heristal, and most of all in the
case of Carl Martel.
At the death of Pepin the storm which had long been gathering, and of
which many forebodings had appeared in his lifetime, broke forth with
tremendous fury. The bands of government were suddenly loosened, and the powers
which Pepin had wielded with such strength and dexterity became the objects of
a ferocious struggle.Plectrudis, his first wife, an
ambitious and daring woman, had resolved to reign as the guardian of her
grandchild, Theudoald, with whom she was at that time
residing at Cologne. Theudoald had
at least the advantage of being the only candidate for power installed by Pepin
himself, and it was no doubt upon his quasi-hereditary claims that Plectrudis based her hopes. She manifested her foresight,
discrimination, and energy, at the commencement of the contest which ensued by
seizing the person of Carl, her stepson, and most formidable rival. But Carl
and his party were not her only opponents. The Neustrians and Burgundians, whom their recollections of Brunhilda and Fredegunda by no
means inclined to acquiesce in another female regency,refused obedience to her commands; and endeavored to excite the puppet-monarch Dagobert
to an independent exercise of his authority. Their zeal as Neustrians too was quickened by the desire of throwing off the Australian or German yoke,
which they considered to have been fixed upon them by the victories and
energetic rule of Pepin. It was
NEUSTRIANS DEVASTATE AUSTRASIA.
owing to this hostile feeling between the Roman and the German portions
of the empire that many even of Pepin’s partizans took side
with Theudoald and Plectrudis, although the latter
held their chief incarcerated. The revolted Neustrians and the army of Plectrudis encountered
each other in the forest of Guise, near Compiegne; and, as far as one can conjecture
from the confused and contradictory accounts of the annalists, Plectrudis and Theudoald suffered a defeat. The Neustrians having obtained the mastery over the hated
Germans in their own country, prepared to extend their authority to Austrasia
itself. Having chosen Raginfried as
their majordomus,
they suddenly marched into the Austrasian territory,
and laid it waste with fire and sword as far as the river Meuse. In spite of
their Christian profession they sought further to strengthen themselves by an alliance
with Ratbod, the
heathen King of the Frisians, who at the death of Pepin had recovered his
independence, and the greater portion of his territory. In the meantime, the
whole aspect of affairs was suddenly changed by the escape of Carl from
custody. The defeated army of Plectrudis,
and many of the Australian seigniors, who were unwilling to support her cause
even against the Neustrians, now rallied with the
greatest alacrity round the youthful hero, and proclaimed him Dux Francorum by
the title of his glorious father. In a very short time after the recovery of
his freedom, Carl found himself at the head of a very efficient, though not
numerous army. He was still, however, surrounded by dangers and difficulties,
under which a man of less extraordinary powers must inevitably have sunk.
Dagobert III died soon after the battle of Compiegne; and the Neustrians, who had felt the disadvantage of his
imbecility, neglected the claims of his son, and raised a priest called Daniel,
a reputed son of Childeric, to the throne, with the title of Chilperic II. This monarch, who appears to have had a
greater degree of energy than his immediate predecessors, formed a plan with
the Frisian king for a combined attack upon Cologne, by which he hoped at once
to bring the war to a successful issue. Ratbod, true to his engagements, advanced with a
numerous fleet of vessels up the Rhine, while Chilperic and Raginfried were
marching towards Cologne through the forest of Ardennes. To prevent this
well-planned junction, Carl determined to fall upon the Frisians before they
reached Cologne. His position must have been rendered still more critical by
the failure of this attack. We read that after both parties had suffered
considerable loss in a hard-fought battle, they retreated on equal terms.
The short time which elapsed before the arrival of the Neustrians was spent by Carl in summoning his friends from
every quarter, to assist him in the desperate struggle in which he was engaged.
In the meantime Chilperic came up, and, encamping in
the neighborhood of Cologne, effected a junction with the Frisians. Contrary to
expectation, however, no attack was made upon Plectrudis, who is said to have bribed the Frisians
to retire. A better reason for the precipitate retreat of the Neustrians and Frisians (which now took place) was the
danger which the former ran of having their retreat cut off by Carl, who had
taken up a strong position in their rear, with continually increasing forces;
as it was, they were not permitted to retire in safety. Carl attacked them
at Ambleve, near Stablo, in the Ardennes, and gave them a total defeat. This
victory put him in possession of Cologne, and the person of Plectrudis, who restored to him
his father’s treasures.
In the following year, AD 717, Carl assumed the
offensive, and, marching through the Silva Carbonaria, began to lay waste the Neustrian territory. Chilperic and Raginfried advanced
to meet him, doubtless with far less confidence than before; and both armies
encamped at Vinci, in the territory of Cambrai. Carl, with an hereditary
moderation peculiarly admirable in a man of his warlike spirit, sent envoys to
the Neustrian camp to offer conditions of peace; and
to induce Chilperic to acknowledge his claim to the
office of majordomus in
Austrasia, “that the blood of so many noble Franks might not be shed”. Carl
himself can have expected no other fruit from these overtures than the
convincing of his own followers of the unreasonableness of their enemies. The Neustrian king and his evil adviser rejected the proffered
terms with indignation, and declared their intention of taking from Carl even
that portion of his inheritance which had already fallen into his hands. Both
sides then prepared for battle; Carl, as we are expressly told, having first
communicated to the chief men in his camp the haughty and threatening answer of
the king. Chilperic relied on his great superiority
in numbers, though his army was drawn, for the most part, from the dregs of the
people: Carl prepared to meet him with a small but highly-disciplined force of
well-armed and skilful warriors. In the battle which
ensued on the 21st of March, the Neustrians were
routed with tremendous loss, and pursued by the victors to the very gates of
Paris. But Carl was not yet in a condition to keep possession of Neustria,
and he therefore led his army back to Cologne, and ascended the “throne of
his kingdom”, as the annalist already calls it, the dignissimus hoeres of his mighty father.
The unfortunate Chilperic, unequal as he must
have felt himself to cope with a warrior like Carl, was once more induced by
evil counselors to renew the war. With this view he sought the alliance of the
imperfectly subjected neighboring states, whom the death of Pepin had awakened
to dreams of independence. Of these the foremost was Aquitaine, which had
completely emancipated itself from Frankish rule. The Aquitania of the Roman
empire extended, as is well known, from the Pyrenees to the river Loire. This
country, at the dissolution of the Western Empire, had fallen into the hands of
the Visigoths, and was subsequently conquered, and to a certain extent
subjugated, by the earlier Merovingians.
But, though nominally part of the Frankish empire, it continued to enjoy
a semi-independence under its native dukes, and remained for many ages a stone
of offence to the Frankish rulers. Its population, notwithstanding the
admixture of German blood consequent on the Gothic conquest, had remained
pre-eminently Roman in its character, and had attained in the seventh century
to an unusual degree of wealth and civilization. The southern part of Aquitaine
had been occupied by a people called Vascones or Gascons,
who extended themselves as far as the Garonne, and had also submitted to the
Frankish rule during the better days of the elder dynasty.
The temporary collapse of the Frankish power consequent upon the bloody
feuds of the royal house, and the struggle between the seigniors and the crown,
enabled Eudo, the Duke of Aquitaine, to establish
himself as a perfectly independent Prince; and he and his sons ruled in full
sovereignty over both Aquitaine and Gascony, and were called
indifferently Aquitanioe or Vasconioe duces.
SUCCESSES AND CLEMENCY OF CARL.
Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that Eudo should gladly receive the presents and overtures made
to him by Chilperic; who agreed to leave him in quiet
possession of the independence he had contumaciously asserted, on condition of
his making cause against the Austrasian mayor. He
lost no time in leading an army of Gascons to
Paris, where he joined his forces to those of Chilperic,
and prepared to meet the terrible foe. Carl advanced with his usual rapidity,
and having laid waste a portion of Neustria, came upon the enemy in the
neighborhood of Soissons. The new allies, who had scarcely had time to
consolidate their union and mature their plans, appear to have made but a
feeble resistance; and Chilperic, not considering
himself safe even in Paris, fled with his treasures, in company with Eudo, into Aquitaine. Raginfried, the Neustrian majordomus, who with a division
of the combined army had also made an attempt to check Carl’s progress, was
likewise defeated and compelled to resign his mayoralty; as a compensation for
which he received from the placable conqueror
the countship of Anjou.
The victorious Austrasians pursued the
fugitives as far as the river Loire and Orleans, from which place Carl sent an
embassy to Eudo, and offered him terms of peace, on
condition of his delivering up Chilperic and his
treasures. It is difficult to say what answer Eudo,
hemmed in as he was on all sides (for the Saracens were in his rear), might
have given to this demand,—whether he would have consulted his own interests,
or his duty to his ally and guest. But the opportune death of Clotaire, whom
Carl had made king of Austrasia after the battle of Ambleve, relieved him from his dilemma. Carl, who
was remarkably free from the evil spirit of revenge, declared his readiness to
acknowledge Chilperic II as king, on condition of
being himself appointed majordomus of
the united kingdoms of Austrasia,
Neustria, and Burgundy. These terms, offered by the victor to one whose very
life was at his mercy, could not but be eagerly accepted; and thus, in AD 719,
Carl became nominally Mayor of the Palace to King Chilperic II, but, in fact, undisputed master of the king himself and the whole Frankish
empire.
The temperate course pursued by Carl in these transactions, proceeded in
a great measure from the natural moderation of his character; but it was a
course which the coolest calculation would suggest. He was indeed victorious,
but he was still surrounded by enemies who were rather beaten than subdued, and
many of them were those of his own household.
After the death of Ratbod,
the “cruel and pagan” king of the Frisians, in AD 719, Carl
recovered the western portion of Friesland, and reduced the Frisians to their
former state of uncertain subjection. About the same time he repelled the
Saxons, those unwearied and implacable enemies of the Frankish name, who had
broken into the Frankish gaus on
the right bank of the Rhine. We know little of the particulars of these
campaigns, since the chroniclers content themselves with recording in general
terms that the “invincible Carl” was always victorious, and his enemies utterly
destroyed; a statement which is rendered suspicious by the fact that their
annihilation has to be repeated frequently, and at no long intervals.
In the year after the Saxon campaign (the date of which is rather
uncertain), Carl crossed the Rhine, and attacked the Alemanni (in Wirtemberg) in their own
country, which he devastated without any serious opposition. Subsequently,
about a.d. 725, he
crossed the Danube, and entered the country of the Bavarians; and after two
successful campaigns obliged that nation also to acknowledge their allegiance
to the Franks. From this expedition, says the chronicler, “he returned by the
Lord’s assistance to his own dominions with great treasures and a certain
matron, by name Plectrude,
and her niece Sonihilde”.
This latter, who is called by Einhard “Swanahilde,
the niece of Odilo”, subsequently became one of
Carl’s wives, and the mother of the unfortunate Gripho.
It seems natural to conjecture, that Carl had an important ulterior
object before his mind in these extraordinary and sustained exertions. They
were but the prelude to the grand spectacle soon to be presented to an admiring
world, in which this mighty monarch with the humble name was to play a
conspicuous and glorious part. A contest awaited him, which he must long have
foreseen with mingled feelings of eagerness and apprehension, and into which he
dared not go unprepared; a contest which required the highest exercise of his
own active genius, and the uncontrolled disposal of all the material resources
of his empire. He had hitherto contended for his hereditary honors against his
personal enemies—for the supremacy of the Germans over the Gallo Romans, of his
own tribe over kindred German tribes—and finally, for order and good government
against anarchy and faction. Hereafter he was to renew the old
struggle between the West and East—to be the champion of Christianity and
German Institutions, against the false and degrading faith of Mohammed, and all
the corrupting and enervating habits of the oriental world.
MOHAMMEDANISM.
The most sober history of the rise and progress of Islamism, and the
Arabian empire, which was founded on it, has all the characteristics of an
eastern fable. In the beginning of the seventh century, an Arabian of the
priestly house of Haschem retired
into a cave at Mecca, to brood over the visions of a powerful but morbid
imagination. The suggestions of his own distempered mind, and the impulses of
his own strong will, were mistaken for the inspiration and the commands of the
Almighty, concerning whom his notions were in part adopted from the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures. He learned to regard himself as the chosen instrument of
God, for the introduction of a new faith and the establishment of a power,
before which all the nations of the earth should bow. When his meditations had
assumed consistency, he shaped them into a system of faith and practice, which
he confidently proposed for the acceptance of mankind, as the most perfect and
glorious expression of the divine mind and will. His belief in himself, in his
own infallibility, and the perfection of his system, was so absolute, that he
regarded all other men in the light of children, who, if they cannot be
persuaded, must be forced, into the right path. The sword was the only logic he
considered suitable to the case; and death or the Koran was the sole
alternative which his followers thought fit to offer.
For a time the lofty pretensions of the prophet were acknowledged only
by a few, and those few belonged to his own family. But his system, springing
as it did from an eminently oriental mind, was wonderfully adapted to the wants
and tastes of oriental nations. The only true and valuable parts of it, indeed,
are mutilated shreds from the covenants of Abraham and Moses and the Revelation
of our blessed Savior; but while the sublimity of these afforded writable
objects of contemplation to the nobler faculties of the soul, the strongest
passions of fallen human nature, pride, revenge, and lust, were not denied
their appropriate gratification. What could be more acceptable to the natural
man than a system which quiets the conscience amidst the excesses of sensual
love, which takes away the necessity for self-discipline by the doctrine of
fatalism, which teaches men to look down with a lofty contempt upon all who think
differently from themselves, and, lastly, holds out as a reward for the
coercion and destruction of opponents an eternity of voluptuous enjoyment in
the society of celestial courtesans? Much no doubt was done by the sword of the
hardy and impetuous sons of Ishmael, but this could not alone have spread the
Koran over half the world; the very faults which make it odious in Christian
eyes, gave wings to its progress, and excited in its favor a deep and frenzied
devotion.
In AD 622, Mohammed was obliged to flee to Medina, from
the virulent opposition of the members of his own tribe. Within ninety years
from that time his successors and disciples had conquered and converted, not
Arabia alone, but Syria, Persia, Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, Asia Minor,
Armenia, the country between the Black Sea and the Caspian, a portion of India,
and the whole of the North of Africa from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean.
The year AD 710 found them gazing with longing eyes
across the straits of Gibraltar, eager for the time when they might plant upon
the rock of Calpe the meteor standard of their prophet; and thence survey the
beautiful and fertile country which was soon to be their own. Nor were their
hopes deferred: their entrance into Spain, which might have proved difficult if
not impossible to effect in the face of a brave and united people, was rendered
safe and easy by treachery, cowardice, and theological dissensions.
The first collision, indeed, of the Arabian conquerors with the warriors
of the West was rather calculated to damp their hopes of European conquest. The
Visigothic kings of Spain possessed the town of Ceuta on the African coast, of
which Count Julian, at the time of which we speak, was military governor. The
skill and courage of this great warrior and his garrison, had hitherto
frustrated all the attempts of Musa, the general of the Caliph Walid, to make himself master of the place. The Saracens
were already beginning to despair of success, when they suddenly received
overtures from Count Julian himself, who now offered, not merely to open the
gates of Ceuta, but to procure for the Saracens a ready admittance into Spain.
The grounds of this sudden treachery on the part of one who had risked his life
at the post of honor, cannot be stated with any degree of certainty. By some it
was ascribed to the desire of avenging himself upon Roderic,
his king, who is said to have abused his daughter; and by others to the fact
that he had espoused the cause of Witiza’s sons,
at that time pretenders to the Spanish throne. The Saracen general Musa,
delighted to have found the Achilles-heel of Europe, immediately despatched a few hundred Moslems across the strait, under
the command of Tarik; from whom the modern Gibraltar (Gebel-al-Tarik) derives
its name. These adventurers were well received in the town and castle of Count
Julian at Algesiras,
and soon returned to their expectant comrades, with rich booty and exciting
tales of the fertility of the country, and the effeminacy of the degenerate
Goths.
FIRST SARACEN ARMY IN EUROPE.
CONQUEST OF SPAIN BY MOSLEMS.
In the April of the following year, AD 711, a body of
5000 Saracens effected a landing on the coast of Spain, and entrenched
themselves strongly near the Rock of Gibraltar. These were soon followed by
other troops, until a considerable Moslem army was collected on the Spanish
shores. The feeble resistance made to this descent was a fatal omen for the
empire of the Visigoths. This once brave and hardy tribe of Germans had lost,
during a long peace, the valor and endurance to which they owed the rich
provinces of Spain; and, amidst the pleasures of that luxurious country, had
grown so unaccustomed to the use of arms, that it was long before they could be
roused to meet the foe. At length, however, the unwarlike Roderic, having collected an army four times as great as
that of the enemy, but without confidence either in their leader or themselves,
encamped at Xeres de
la Frontera, in the neighbourhood of Cadiz. While awaiting at this
place the approach of the enemy, the Gothic king is represented as sitting in
an ivory chariot, arrayed in silken garments unworthy of a man even in time of
peace, and wearing a golden crown upon his head. The battle which quickly
followed was fought on the 26th of July, A. D. 731. It was of short
duration and of no doubtful issue. The timid herd of Goths, scarcely awaiting
the wild charge of the Saracens, turned and fled in irretrievable confusion.
Roderic himself, fit leader of such an army, was among the first to leave the
field on the back of a fleet racer, which had been placed, at his desire, in
the neighborhood of his tent, as if his trembling heart had foreseen the issue.
The Visigothic empire in Spain fell by a single blow. Tarik advanced
with his victorious army as far as Cordova, which immediately yielded at his
summons ; and he would, without doubt, have overrun the whole of Spain, had he
not been recalled by the jealousy of Musa, who reserved for himself the glory
of completing the splendid conquest.
Of all the Spanish towns which were captured on this occasion, Seville
and Merida alone appear to have upheld the ancient glories of the Gothic name;
but even these were finally reduced, and the last remnants of the Visigoths
were driven from the rich plains they had so long possessed into the mountains
of Asturias. It was in these rugged solitudes, and amidst the hardships and
privations which they there endured, that they regained their ancient vigour, and preserved their Christian faith. It was thence
that at a later period they descended upon their Moorish foes, and in many a
hard-fought battle, the frequent theme of ballad and romaunt, recovered, step by step, the fair
possessions which their ancestors had won and lost.
And thus by a single victory Spain was added to the vast dominions of
the Caliph, and the Cross once more retired before the Crescent. Nor did it
seem that the Pyrenees, any more than the rock of Gibraltar, were to prove a
barrier to the devastating flood of Islamism. About AD 718,
Zama, the Arabian Viceroy of Spain, made himself master of that portion of
Gaul, on the slopes of the Eastern Pyrenees, of which the Goths had hitherto
retained possession. In AD 731 he stormed Narbonne, the
capital of the province, and having put all the male inhabitants capable of
bearing arms to the sword, he sent away the women and children into captivity.
He then pushed forward into Aquitaine, and laid siege to Toulouse, which proved
the limit of his progress; for it was there that he was defeated by Eudo, the duke of the country, who was roused to a
desperate effort by the danger of his capital. The check thus given to the
onward march of the Moslems was of short duration. Ambiza, the successor of Zama, about four years afterwards
once more made a movement in advance. Taking a more easterly direction, he
stormed and plundered Carcassonne and Nimes; and having devastated the country
as far as the Rhone, returned laden with booty across the Pyrenees.
Duke Eudo of Aquitaine, deprived of the fruits
of his single victory, resigned all hopes of successfully resisting the
invaders, and endeavored to preserve himself from utter ruin by an alliance
with his formidable foes. He is even said to have so far belied his character
of Christian prince as to give his own daughter in marriage, or concubinage,
to Munuz, the
governor of the newly-made Gallic conquests.
It appears that the expeditions of the Saracens into Gaul had been
hitherto made by individual generals on a comparatively small scale, and on
their own responsibility. The unusually slow progress of their arms at this
period, is to be ascribed less to any fear of opposition, than to inward
dissensions in the Arabian empire, and a rapid succession of caliphs singularly
unlike in their characters and views. Nine short years (AD 715—724,)
had seen the cruel Soliman succeeded by the severe, yet just and upright Omar,
the luxurious Epicurean Yesid,
and the little-minded, calculating Hescham.
HEAD OF MUNUZ SENT TO THE
CALIPH.
It is probable, therefore, that, amid more pressing anxieties and
interests, the distant conquest of Spain was forgotten or neglected by the
court at Damascus; and that the generals, who commanded in that country, were
apt to indulge in ideas inconsistent with their real position as satraps and
slaves of an imperial master. But a change was at hand, and the new actor Abderahman, who suddenly appeared upon the scene with an
army of 400,000 men, was charged with a twofold commission,—to chastise the
presumption of Munuz,
whose alliance with Eudo was regarded with
suspicion,—and to bring the whole of Gaul under the scepter of the Caliph and
the law of Mohammed. Regarding Munuz as
a rebel and a semi-apostate, Abderahman besieged him
in the town of Cerdagnel,
to which he fled for refuge, and, having driven him to commit suicide, sent his
head, together with his wife, the daughter of Eudo,
as a welcome present to the Caliph Hescham.
The victorious Saracens then marched on past Pampeluna, and, making their way through the narrow
defiles on the western side of the Pyrenean chain, poured down upon the plains
with their innumerable hosts as far as the river Garonne. The city of Bordeaux
was taken and sacked, and still they pressed on impetuously and without
opposition, until they reached the river Dordogne, where Eudo,
burning with rage at the treatment which his daughter had received, made a
fruitless attempt to stop them. Irritated rather than checked by his feeble
efforts, the overwhelming tide poured on. The standard of the Prophet soon
floated from the towers of Poitiers, and even Tours, the city of the holy St.
Martin, was in danger of being polluted by the presence of insulting infidels,
when, in the hour of Europe’s greatest dread and danger, the champion of
Christendom appeared at last, to do battle with the hitherto triumphant enemies
of the Cross.
It seems strange at first sight that the danger, which had so long been
threatening Europe from the side of Spain, should not have called forth an
earlier and more effectual resistance from those whose national and religious
existence was at stake. Abderahman had now made his
way into the very centre of modern France; had taken
and plundered some of the wealthiest towns in the Frankish empire; and, after
burning or desecrating every Christian church he met with, was marching on the
hallowed sanctuary of the patron saint, enriched by the offerings of ages;
without encountering a single foe who could even hope to stay his progress.
Where was the invincible and ubiquitous Carl, who was wont to fall like a
thunderbolt upon his enemies? We might indeed be surprised at his seeming
tardiness, did we not know the extraordinary difficulties with which he had to
struggle, and the seemingly impossible task he had to perform. It was not with
the modern superstition of Mohammed alone that he had to contend, but with the
hoary heathenism of the North; not with the Saracens alone, but with his
barbarous kinsmen—with nations as hardy and warlike as his own Austrasian warriors, and animated no less than the
followers of Mohammed with an indomitable hatred of the Christian name. Enemies
were ready to pour upon him from every side, from the green slopes of the
Pyrenees and over the broad waters of the Rhine; nor could he reckon upon the
fidelity of all who lay within these boundaries.
During the whole of the ten years in which the Saracens were crossing
the Pyrenees and establishing themselves in Gaul, Carl was constantly engaged
in wars with his German neighbors. In that short period he made campaigns
against the Frisians, the Swabians, and the Bavarians, the last of whom (as we
have seen) he even crossed the Danube to attack in their own country. As late
as AD 728, when Abderahman must have
been already meditating his desolating march, Carl had to turn his arms once
more against the Saxons; and in AD 731, the very year before
he met the Saracens at Poitiers, he marched an army into Aquitaine to quell the
rebellion of Duke Eudo.
Such were some of the adverse circumstances under which Carl had to make
his preparations, and under which he encamped with his veterans in the
neighborhood of Poitiers, where, for the first time in his life, he beheld the
white tents of the Moslem invaders, covering the land as far as the eye could
reach.
We cannot doubt that he had long been looking forward to this hour with
an anxious though intrepid heart, for all depended upon him; and that the wars
in which he had lately been engaged, were the more important in his eyes,
because their successful termination was necessary to secure his rear, and
increase the limits of his war-ban when the time for action should arrive.
The hitherto unconquered Saracens, who had carried the banner of their
Prophet in almost uninterrupted triumph from the deserts of Arabia to the banks
of the Loire, were destined to find at last an insuperable barrier in the brave
hearts of Carl and his Austrasian followers.
BATTLE OF POITIERS.
On a Sunday, in the month of October, AD 732, after
trying each other’s strength in skirmishes of small importance during the whole
of the previous week, the two armies, invoking respectively the aid of Christ
and Mohammed, came to a general engagement on the plains between Poitiers and
Tours. The rapid onslaught of the Ishmaelites,
by which they were accustomed to bear everything before them, recoiled from the
steady valor and iron front of the Franks, whose heavy swords made dreadful
havoc among their lightly clad opponents. Repulsed, but unbroken in
courage and determination, resolved to force their way through that wall of
steel or to dash themselves to death against it, the gallant Moslems repeated
their wild charges until sunset. At every repulse their blood flowed in
torrents, and at the end of the day they found themselves farther than ever
from the goal, and gazed upon far more dead upon the slippery field than
remained alive in their ranks. Hopeless of being able to renew the contest,
they retreated in the night, and, for the first time, fled before an enemy. On
the following morning, when the Franks again drew up in battle-array, the camp
of the foe was discovered to be empty, so that, instead of awaiting the attack,
they had the more agreeable task of plundering the tents and pursuing the
fugitives. Abderahman himself was found among the
dead, and around him, according to the not very credible account of the
chroniclers, lay 300,000 of his soldiers; while the Franks lost only 1500 men.
Eudo, who, after his defeat on the Dordogne, had taken
refuge with his more merciful enemy Carl, was present in the battle and took
part in the pursuit and plunder. It was after this glorious triumph over the
most formidable enemies of his country and religion that Carl received the
surname of Martel (the Hammer), by which he has since been known, in history.
The importance of this victory to all succeeding age has often been
enlarged upon, and can hardly be exaggerated. The fate of Europe, humanly
speaking, hung upon the sword of the Frankish mayor; and but for Carl, and the
bold German warriors who had learned the art and practice of war under him and
his glorious father, the heart of Europe might even now be in the possession of
the Moslem; and the Mosque and the Harem might stand where now we see the spire
of the Christian church, and the home of the Christian family.
Though an effective check had been given to the progress of the Saracen
arms, and they themselves had been deprived of that chief support of fanatic
valor— the belief in their own invincibility,—yet their power was by no means
broken, nor was Carl in condition to improve his victory. The Neustrians and Burgundians were far from being reconciled
to the supremacy which the German Franks had acquired over themselves under the
mighty Carolingian mayores.
Their jealousy of Carl Martel’s success and their hatred of his person, were so
much stronger than their zeal in the cause of Christendom, that even while he
was engaged in his desperate conflict with the Saracens they were raising a
rebellion in his rear. But the indefatigable warrior was not sleeping on the
laurels he had won. No sooner had he received intelligence of their treacherous
designs, than he led his troops, fresh from the slaughter of the Infidels, into
the very heart of Burgundy, and inflicted a terrible retribution on his
domestic foes. He then removed all whom he had reason to suspect from their
posts of emolument and honor, and bestowed them upon men on whom he could
depend in the hour of danger.
TO CHRISTIANITY FORCED UPON THE FRISIANS.
In the following year, AD 734, he made considerable
progress in the subjugation and, what was even more difficult, the conversion
of the Frisians, who hated Christianity the more because it was connected in
their minds with a foreign yoke. The preaching of Boniface was powerfully
seconded by the sword of Carl, who attacked them by land and sea, defeated
their Duke, Poppo,
destroyed their heathen altars, and, like our own Alfred in the case of the
Danes, gave them the alternative of Christianity or death.
After the victory of Poitiers, Carl had entrusted the defence of the Pyrenean borders to Duke Eudo,
whom he left in peaceable though dependent possession of his territories. Eudo had received a rough lesson from his former
misfortunes, and passed the remainder of his life in friendly relations with
his Frankish liege lord. At the death of Eudo,
in AD 735, a dispute arose between his sons, Hunold and Hatto,
respecting the succession; and it seems that in the course of their contest
they had forgotten their common dependence upon Carl Martel. A feud of this
nature at such a period, and in the immediate neighborhood of the Saracens, was
highly dangerous to Aquitaine and the whole Frankish empire. Carl
therefore lost no time in leading an army into the distracted province, to
settle the disputes of the contending parties, and bring the population into a
more complete state of subjection. Having advanced to the Garonne and
taken the city of Bordeaux, he entered into negotiations with Hunold; and, “with his accustomed piety”, conferred the
duchy upon him, on condition of his renewing his father’s oath of fealty to
himself and his two sons, whom he thus distinctly pointed out to the Franks
as their hereditary rulers.
AVIGNON TAKEN FROM THE SARACENS.
In AD 737, the infidels were once more introduced into
the south of Gaul by the treachery of Christians. A man of influence in
Provence, called Maurontus,
who probably aimed at an independent dukedom, formed a strong party among the Neustrian seigniors against the detested German mayor.1 As
the Arabian alliance was the only one which could sustain them in a conflict
with Carl, they made no scruple of inviting Ibn Yusuf, the new viceroy of Septimania (Languedoc), into their country and giving him
the city of Avignon as a pledge of their sincerity. The Saracens, instructed by
their strange allies, passed into Burgundy, where the party opposed to Carl was
strongest: having taken Vienne, they covered the country as far as Lyons with
their wild and rapid cavalry, which everywhere left its traces of fire and
blood.
The advance of the Saracens was so sudden, and their progress so rapid,
that Carl Martel was not immediately prepared to meet them. He therefore despatched his brother Childebrand and his principal seigniors, with
such forces as were ready, to keep the enemy in check; determining himself to
follow with a numerous and well appointed army. When
the advanced guard of the Franks arrived near Avignon, the Saracens retreated
into that place, and prepared to stand a siege. On the arrival of Carl the
town, which had resisted Childebrand,
was taken by storm, and the Arabian garrison put to the sword. The Franks then
crossed the Rhone, and marched through Septimania to
Narbonne—a place of great importance to the Saracens, who had made it a
magazine for their arms. It was defended at this time by Athima, viceroy of the Caliph in Septimania, with a considerable force. The Saracens
of Spain, fearing that the garrison might be insufficient to withstand the
assault of the Franks (who had invested the town on every side), fitted out a
fleet, and transported a body of troops to the mouth of the river Berre (near Narbonne), in
hopes of raising the siege. This movement did not escape the quick eye of Carl;
who, leaving his brother with a division of the besiegers, fell with the
remainder on the newly landed force of the enemy, and routed them with dreadful
slaughter. He failed, however, in his attempts upon Narbonne, which remained in
the hands of the Saracens; while Bezieres, Agde, Megalone, and Nimes, together with all the
territory on the north side of the river Aude (subsequently
known as Languedoc), were reunited to the Frankish Empire.
According to Paullus Diaconus, Carl Martel was
assisted on this occasion by Luitprand, king of the Longobards in Italy, with whom he had formed a close
alliance and friendship. We have hardly sufficient grounds for believing that
the Longobards took an active part in this war, but
the mere expectation of their approach may have exercised some influence in
bringing about the results above described.
The activity of his enemies in the north again prevented Carl from
pursuing his advantages against the Moslems, who might perhaps, had German
Europe been united, have even then been driven back to the shores of Africa.
In AD 737 we find the indefatigable warrior employed in
repelling and avenging a fresh inroad of the Saxons, whom he defeated with
great slaughter and drove along the river Lippe.
In AD 739 he again appeared in Burgundy, where his presence
had become necessary to stamp out the shouldering embers of the old conspiracy.
STATE OF ITALY.
In the meantime a new theatre was preparing for the Franks, on which
they were destined by Providence to play a very conspicuous and important part.
The exertions and influence of Boniface the great apostle of Germany, and the
intimate religious union he had effected between the Frankish Church and the
Bishops of Rome, were to produce for both parties still richer fruits than had
yet appeared. To understand the circumstances which brought them into closer
external relations, corresponding to the increased intimacy of their spiritual
union, it will be necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the state of
Italy at this period; and more especially with the very singular and anomalous
position of the Bishops of Rome.
That devoted land, as if in penance for the long and selfish tyranny it
had exercised over the world, had become the prey, in turn, of almost every
barbarous tribe of Europe; but was at this period nominally subject to the
Emperors of the East. The victories of Narses, in AD 534, had
destroyed the power of the Ostrogoths, which, under the great and good
Theodoric, had seemed so firmly established; and Italy was now a province of
the Roman Empire, instead of being, as formerly, its centre and head. It was governed for the Byzantine court by a viceroy styled Exarch,
whose residence was at Ravenna, on the eastern coast. The court and people of
Constantinople, however, were too feeble to retain for any length of time a
conquest, which they owed solely to the genius of a fortunate general. About
thirty years after the defeat of the Goths, when the valiant eunuch had ceased
to defend what he had won, the Longobards and 20,000
Saxons, descending upon Italy from the Julian Alps; expelled the Romans from
the greater portion of their recent conquests, and confined them to the narrow
limits of the Exarchate. The empire which the Longobards at this time established was greatly weakened by its division into several
Duchies, the rulers of which were in constant strife with one another and with
the central government. We may judge of the extent and consequences of these
internal dissensions from the fact that, after the assassination of King Eleph (ad 574), the Longobards in Italy remained without a king for ten years,
and were subject to thirty-six dukes, each of whom “reigned in his own city”.
The most powerful of these were the Dukes of Benevento, Friuli, and
Spoleto. At the end of this period the royalist party—favoured, no doubt, by the great mass of the
people, to whom nothing is so hateful as a petty tyrant—once more obtained the
ascendancy, and compelled the revolted dukes to swear fealty to Authari, surnamed Flavius, son
of the murdered Kleph.
The reunion of the Longobards under one head was
naturally followed by a further extension of their borders at the expense of
the Roman empire; and this extension was the immediate cause of a collision
between the kings of the Longobards and the successors
of St. Peter, which gave rise to the most important and lasting results.
POSITION OF BISHOPS OF ROME.
The Bishops of Rome had, in the meantime, been adding to the spiritual
influence they owed to their position as heads of the Church in the great
capital of the West, the material resources of extensive possessions, and
numerous and devoted vassals. Like all other dignified ecclesiastics within the
imperial dominions, the Bishops of Rome were subject to the Greek Emperor; but,
as it was mainly by their influence and exertions that the city and duchy of
Rome were kept in allegiance to the Greek Emperor, the balance of obligation
was generally in favor of the Pontiffs, who, on that account, were treated by
the court at Constantinople in a far less arrogant manner than would have been
congenial to the pompous sovereigns of the East.
The aggressive attitude of the Longobards,
which threatened the Greek Emperors with the loss of the small remnant of their
Italian possessions, was calculated to excite no less the apprehensions of the
Roman Bishops. It was open to them, indeed, to throw themselves at once into
the arms of the Longobardian monarchs,
from whose reverence and gratitude they might, no doubt, have acquired a
commanding position in Church and State; and it was this
ever-present alternative which rendered them virtually independent of
their nominal sovereigns. Many reasons, however, inclined them to preserve
their allegiance to the Byzantine court, or at least to refrain from
transferring it to any other potentate. Old associations, and the fear of
change, would have their weight in determining the course pursued; but the
circumstances which chiefly influenced the Popes in their decision were, in the
first place, the distance of Constantinople from Rome, which was favorable to
their independence; and, in the next, the declining power and feeble character
of the Emperors, which rendered them convenient masters to aspiring vassals.
The evident intention of the Bishops of Rome, to play off the Longobards and the Byzantine court against each other, and
to make their own career the resultant of these two opposing forces, seemed,
for some time, likely to be entirely frustrated. The iconoclastic controversy,
with all its horrible and ridiculous consequences, now began to agitate the
Christian world, and gave rise to the bitterest hostility between the great
capitals of the East and West, and their respective rulers. The Emperor Leo
III, surnamed the Isaurian, disgusted at the idolatrous worship paid by his
subjects to the images which filled the churches, issued, in AD 726,
his famous decree for their destruction. It was then that the independence of
thought and action to which the Roman bishops had accustomed themselves was
clearly manifested.
The Emperor communicated his pleasure respecting the destruction of the
images to the Pope, and claimed from him the same unanswering obedience which he was accustomed
to meet with from the Patriarch of Constantinople. But Gregory II, encouraged
by the unanimous support of the Italians, who looked to him as the champion of
their beloved idols, not only refused, in a letter full of personal abuse, to
carry out the wishes of the Emperor, but fulminated a threat of excommunication
against all who should dare to lay violent hands upon the images.
LUITPRAND MARCHES UPON ROME.
After so public a renunciation of his allegiance, we might expect to see
the Bishop of Rome avowedly siding with the Longobards,
especially as they had forsaken the Arian heresy, and their King Luitprand himself had manifested a very high degree of
veneration for St. Peter’s chair. But the motives suggested above retained
their force, and no such change took place; on the contrary, we are told that
when the Italians, “on hearing the wickedness of Leo, formed a plan of electing
a new emperor and conducting him to Constantinople”, the Pope induced them to
forego their purpose and adhere to their former allegiance.
Nor is his policy on this occasion difficult to understand. The Longobards were too near, and the absorption of Rome into
their empire would have been too complete to allow the Bishops of Rome free
scope for their lofty schemes of ambition. As subjects of King Luitprand, they would have run the risk of sinking from the
rank of virtual rulers of the Roman duchy, to that of mere metropolitan
bishops. And the danger of this degradation grew every day more urgent. Gregory
II died in the midst of the perplexities arising from his critical position.
But the same policy was pursued by his successor Gregory III with so much
determination, that Luitprand, who, whatever may have
been his reverence for the spiritual character of his opponent, and liberal as
he was towards the Holy See, could not overlook his intrigues, and was
determined to be sole master in Italy, found it necessary to advance upon Rome
with a hostile army. The scruples which the pious Longobards may have felt in violating St Peter’s patrimony, must have been greatly
relieved by the very secular conduct of Gregory in respect to the king’s
rebellious vassals. Thrasamund, Duke of Spoleto,
having incurred the displeasure of his sovereign, took refuge in Rome; and when Luitprand demanded that he should be given up, the
Pope and the Patricians of the Romans united in giving a decided refusal. The
opposition to Luitprand was further strengthened by
the adhesion of Gottschalk, Duke of Benevento, who took up arms against his
suzerain; and in an engagement which took place soon after, between the king
and his mutinous vassals, Roman troops were seen fighting on the side of the
rebels.
Contrary to the hopes and expectations of Gregory, Luitprand was completely victorious; and, justly irritated by the conduct of the Romans,
to whom he had shown so much forbearance, immediately led his forces to the
very gates of Rome, with the full intention of incorporating it with the rest
of his Italian dominions3; and thus, with all his foresight, Gregory had
brought the rising structure of the papacy into the greatest danger, and
appeared to be himself at the mercy of his enemies.
In this extremity the holy father bethought himself of the powerful and
orthodox nation which had for so many ages been the faithful ally of the
Catholic Church, and had lately been united in still closer bonds of reverence
and amity to St. Peter’s chair. In AD 739, Pope Gregory III
applied for aid against the Longobards “to his most excellent son, the Sub-king Carl”.
That this application was made unwillingly, and with considerable
misgivings about the consequences, may be inferred from the extremities to
which Gregory submitted before he made it.
His hesitation was owing, no doubt, in part to his instinctive dread of
giving the papal chair a too powerful protector, who might easily become a
master; and partly to his knowledge of the sincere friendship which existed
between his opponent Luitprand and his desired ally.
Of all the circumstances which threatened to prevent the realization of the
papal dreams of temporal independence and spiritual domination, none were so
greatly and so justly dreaded as an alliance between the Franks and Longobards; and we shall see that Gregory III and his
successors spared no pains, and shrunk from no means however questionable, to
excite jealousy and hatred between the Franks and their Lombard kinsmen.
While the Romans were trembling within their hastily-repaired walls,
and awaiting the decisive assault of the Longobards,
Carl Martel was resting from the fatigues of his late campaigns in Burgundy;
and he was still in that country when the papal envoys reached him.
They brought with them a piteous epistle from Gregory, in which he
complains with bitterness of the persecutions of his enemies, who, he
says, had robbed the very church of St Peter (which stood without the
walls) of its candlesticks; and taken away the pious offerings of the Frankish
princes. Carl received the communication of the afflicted Pontiff with the
greatest reverence. The interests of the empire, and more especially of his own
family, were too intimately connected with the existence and honor of the
Bishops of Rome, to allow of his feeling indifferent to what was passing in
Italy; and there is no reason to doubt that he entertained the highest
veneration for the Head of the Church. Yet this first embassy seems to have
justified the fears rather than the hopes of Gregory.
The incessant exertions which Carl’s enemies compelled him to make for
the maintenance of his authority would long ago have destroyed a man of
ordinary energy and endurance, and were beginning to tell even upon his iron
frame. He was aware that the new order of things, of which he was the principal
author, depended for its continuance and consolidation solely upon his presence
and watchfulness. So far from being in a condition to lead his forces to a
distant country, and to make enemies of brave and powerful friends, it was not
long since he had sought the assistance of the Longobards themselves; and he knew not how soon he might stand in need of it again.
He therefore contented himself with opening friendly negotiations with Luitprand, who excused himself to Carl, and agreed to spare
the Papal territory on condition that the Romans should cease to interfere
between himself and his rebellious subjects. The exact terms of the agreement
made between Gregory and Luitprand, by the mediation
of Carl Martel, are of the less moment, as they were observed by neither party.
In AD 740 the Longobards again
appeared in arms before the gates of Rome; and the Pope was once more a
suppliant at the Frankish court. In the letter which Carl Martel received on
this occasion, Gregory bitterly complains that no effectual aid had been as yet
afforded him; that more attention had been paid to the “lying” reports of the
Lombard king than to his own statements, and he earnestly implores his “most
Christian son” not to prefer the friendship of Luitprand to the love of the Prince of the Apostles. It is evident from the whole
tenor of this second epistle, that the Frankish mayor had not altered his
conduct towards the King of the Lombards, in consequence of Gregory’s charges
and complaints; but had trusted rather to his own knowledge of his friend than
to the invectives of the terrified and angry Pope.
HONORS OFFERED TO CARL BY THE
POPE.
To give additional weight to his written remonstrances and entreaties,
Gregory sent the bishop Anastasius and the presbyter Sergius to Carl Martel, charged with more secret and important instructions, which he
scrupled to commit to writing. The nature of their communications may be
gathered from the symbolical actions by which they were accompanied. The envoys
brought with them the keys of St. Peter’s sepulcher, which they offered to
Carl, on whom they were also empowered to confer the title and dignity of Roman Patricius. By the former step, the offer of the keys
(an honor never before conferred upon a Frankish ruler), Gregory expressed his
desire to constitute the powerful mayor Protector of the Holy See; and by
conferring the rank of Roman Patricius without, as
seems probable, the sanction of the Greek Emperor, he in effect withdrew his
allegiance from the latter, and acknowledged Carl Martel as liege lord of the
Roman duchy and people. It was in this light that the whole transaction was
regarded at the time, for we read in the chronicle of Moissiac, written in the beginning of the ninth
century, that the letter of “the Pope was accompanied by a decree of the
Roman Principes; and
that the Roman people, having thrown off the rule of the Greek Emperor, desired
to place themselves under the protection of the aforesaid prince, and his
invincible clemency”.
Carl Martel received the ambassadors with the distinguished honor due to
the dignity of the sender, and the importance of their mission; and willingly
accepted at their hands the significant offerings they brought. When they were
prepared to return, he loaded them with costly presents, and ordered Grimo, the Abbot of Corbey, and Sigebert, a monk of St. Denis, to accompany
them to Rome, and bear his answer to Pope Gregory. Rome was once more delivered
from destruction by the intervention of Carl, and his influence with Luitprand.
DEATH OF CARL MARTEL. HIS
CHARACTER AND ACTIONS.
And thus were the last days of the great Frankish hero and Gregory III
employed in marking out a line of policy respecting each other, and the great
temporal and spiritual interests committed to them, which, being zealously
followed up by their successors, led in the sequel to the most important and
brilliant results. They both died nearly at the same time, in the same year (AD 741)
in which the events above described took place. The restless activity of Carl
Martel had prematurely worn him out. Conscious of the rapid decline of his
powers, he began to set his house in order; and he had scarcely time to portion
out his vast empire among his sons, and to make his peace with heaven in the
church of the patron saint, when he was seized by a fever in his palace
at Chiersy, on the
Oise; where he died on the 15th (or 21st) of October, AD 741,
at the early age of fifty. He was buried in the church of St. Denis.
Carl Martel may be reckoned in the number of those great men who have
been deprived of more than half the glory due to them, “because they want the
sacred poet”. Deeds which, in the full light of history, would have appeared
sufficient to make a dozen warriors immortal, are despatched by the Frankish chroniclers in a few dry words. His greatness, indeed, shines
forth even from their meager notices; but we feel, as we read them, that had a
Caesar or a Livy unfolded his character and described his exploits,—instead of
a poor pedantic monk like Fredegar,—a
rival might be found for the Caesars, the Scipios, and the Hannibals.
We have seen that he inherited little from his father but the hereditary vigour of his race. He began life as the prisoner of
an envious stepmother. When he escaped from his prison at Cologne, he was
surrounded by powerful enemies; nor could he consider himself safe until, with
a force which voluntarily joined his standard, he had defeated three armies
larger than his own. His subsequent career was in accordance with the
deeds of his early life. Every step in his onward progress was the result of a
contest. He fought his way to the seat of his mighty father. He defeated the Neustrians, and compelled them to receive a sovereign at
his hands. He attacked and defeated, in rapid succession, the warlike nation of
the Frisians and the Saxons.; he refixed the
Frankish yoke more firmly upon the necks of the Swabians, the Bavarians, the Aquitanians, and Gascons;
and, above all, he stemmed the mighty tide of Moslemism which threatened to engulf the world.
Nor was it with external enemies alone that he had to contend. To the
last days of his active life he was engaged in quelling the endless seditions
of the great seigniors, who were as impatient of control from above as of
opposition from below.
His mighty deeds are recorded; but of the manner in which he set about
them; of the resources, internal and external, mental and physical, by which he
was enabled to perform them; of his personal character and habits; of his usual
dwelling-place; of his friends and servants, his occupations, tastes, and
habits, we are left in the profoundest ignorance.
The great and important results of his activity were the predominance of
the German element in the Frankish empire, the preservation of Europe from
Mohammedanism, and the union of the principal German tribes into one powerful
State. And all these mighty objects he effected, as far as we are able to
judge, chiefly, though not entirely, by the sword. He beat down everything
which barred his course; he crushed all those who dared to oppose him; he
coerced the stubbornness of the independent German tribes, and welded them
together by terrific and repeated blows. Our prevailing idea of him, therefore,
is that of force—irresistible energy; and his popular surname of Martel, or the
Hammer, appears a particularly happy one.
The task which he performed was in many respects similar to that of
Clovis at an earlier period; but it is not difficult to see that it was
performed in a very different spirit. “He is not”, says Guizot, “an ordinary
usurper. He is the chief of a new people which has not renounced its ancient
manners, and which holds more closely to Germany than to Gaul”. Though superior
to Clovis, even as a warrior, we have no sufficient reason to accuse Carl
Martel of being either treacherous or cruel. The incessant wars in which he was
unavoidably engaged, necessarily imply a great amount of confusion in the
State, and of sacrifice and suffering on the part of the people. And we have
sufficient evidence of a direct nature, to show that the usual effects of
long-continued wars were severely felt in the Frankish empire. The great mass
of the people is seldom honored by the notice of the Chroniclers, and never
except in their relation to those for whom they toil and bleed; and we might
have been left in blissful ignorance of the cost of Carl Martel’s brilliant
deeds, had not the coffers of the Church been heavily mulcted to defray it.
VISION OF ST. EUCHERIUS.
Ecclesiastical property, which, at the time we speak of, comprised a
large proportion of the land, was exempted, by various immunities and
privileges, from bearing its due share of the public burdens. Carl Martel,
therefore, to whom a large and constant supply of money was indispensable, was
accustomed to make a portion of the wealth of the Church available to the wants
of the State. This he effected by bestowing bishoprics and rich benefices on
his personal friends and trustiest followers, without much regard to their
fitness for the clerical office. It was for this offence that, notwithstanding
the support he gave to Boniface and his brother missionaries, and the number of
churches which he founded and endowed, he was held up by ecclesiastical writers
of a later age as a destroyer of monasteries, “who converted the property of the
Church to his own use”, and on that account died “a fearful death”. More than a
hundred years after Carl’s decease (in AD 858) Louis, the
German, was reminded, by a synod held at Chiersy, of the sins committed by his great
ancestor against the Church. “Prince Carl”, said the assembled fathers to the
king, “the father of Pepin, who was the first among the Frankish kings and
princes to alienate and distribute the goods of the Church, was solely on that
account eternally damned”. They then proceeded to relate the well-known “Visio
S. Eucherii”, a
forgery of Archbishop Hincmar, according to which, Eucherius, bishop of
Orleans, having been transported to the other world in a trance, beheld Carl
Martel suffering the pains of hell. On his inquiring, of the angel who
accompanied him, the reason of what he saw, he was told that the mighty majordomus was
suffering the penalty of having seized and distributed the property of the
Church. The astonished bishop related what had befallen him to Boniface,
and Fulrad the
abbot of St. Denis, and repaired in their company to the sepulcher of Carl
Martel. On opening the coffin, which was charred on the inside and contained no
corpse, a dragon rushed out and made its escape.
Against these and other harsh judgments of the great hero’s character
(none of which are earlier than the ninth century), the acrimonious nature of
which betrays their source, we may set the respect of his contemporaries, the
friendship of Boniface and Pope Gregory, and the fact that he endowed and
enriched a great number of religious houses, and was frequently applied to by
the Pope to defend St. Peter’s chair. That his own necessities, and the
excessive wealth and troublesome privileges of the Church, induced him to take
measures which operated injuriously on the character of the clergy, cannot be
denied; but he proved in many ways that he acted in no hostile spirit to
religion or its ministers, but under the pressure of circumstances which he
could not control. If he used a portion of the revenues of the Church to pay
and equip his soldiers, he led those soldiers against the bitterest enemies of
Christendom, the heathen and the Moslem. His lot was cast in the battlefield,
but the part which he there performed was useful as well as brilliant. Though
evidently a warrior of the highest class—great in the council as in the
field—he was not that degraded being, a mere warrior. He never seems to have
sought war for its own sake, or to have delighted in bloodshed. He was willing
to negotiate with an enemy, even when he felt himself the stronger; and
was placable and
generous to his bitterest foes. The aid he afforded to Boniface and others in
their efforts to convert the heathen, and the sympathy he showed in their
success, sufficiently prove that he was not indifferent to religion; and that
he could appreciate, not only the brave exploits of the gallant soldier, but
the self-sacrificing labors of the zealous missionary.
V.
CARLOMAN AND PEPIN THE SHORT.
AD 741—768
Carl Martel left two sons, Carloman and Pepin,
by his first wife of whom nothing is known, and a third, Gripho,
by the captive Bavarian princess Sunehild, who is
sometimes called his second wife and sometimes his concubine. In the first
partition of his dominions, which was made known before his death, he
apportioned Austrasia, Swabia (Alemannia), and Thuringia, the German provinces,
to his eldest son, Carloman; Neustria, Burgundy, and
Provence, to Pepin, the chief inheritor of his glory. In this arrangement the
son of Sunehild was wisely passed over; but the
entreaties of his beautiful spouse induced Carl, at the very end of his life,
to set apart a portion from each of the two kingdoms above mentioned for Gripho; an unfortunate step, which only brought destruction
on him who received the fatal gift.
The mischievous effects of the new partition showed themselves
immediately. The subjects of Gripho, among whom alone
he could look for sympathy and support, were discontented at being arbitrarily
separated from the rest of the empire; and the ill-feeling of the seigniors and
people in all parts of the country appears to have been enhanced by the
prejudice existing against Sunehild, both as a
foreigner and on account of the great influence she exercised over the heart of
Carl. So strong, indeed, was the feeling of the Franks upon the subject, that
we may fairly doubt whether Carloman and Pepin
themselves, had they been so inclined, would have been able to secure to their
brother the possession of the territory allotted to him.
Whatever sentiments the two eldest brothers previously entertained
towards Gripho, they were soon rendered openly
hostile by the flight of their sister Hiltrude to the
court of Bavaria, and her unauthorized marriage with Odilo,
the duke of that country. Sunehild and Gripho, who were naturally looked upon as the instigators
of this unwelcome alliance, shut themselves up in the fortress of Laon; but
being entirely without resources, they yielded up the place and themselves as
soon as Carloman and Pepin appeared with an army
before its walls. The favorite wife of the mighty Carl Martel was sent into a
nunnery at Chelles, and Gripho was imprisoned in the castle of Neufchateau,
in the forest of Ardennes.
The great importance which the youthful rulers attached to the flight of Gripho and his mother, and the clandestine marriage
of Hiltrude, was owing to their knowledge of the
troubled state of Bavaria, where a rebellion broke out soon afterwards. Carloman and Pepin, like their forefathers, were called upon,
at the very commencement of their reign, to show themselves worthy of the
scepter they had inherited. No sooner was the heavy hand of Carl Martel
withdrawn from their necks, than Swabians, Bavarians, and Aquitanians once more flew to arms for the recovery of their independence. Nor can we
condemn the proceedings of these warlike tribes as unseasonable, or altogether
rash and hopeless. They had no reason to suppose that, contrary to the usual
course of nature, the Carolingian race would go on forever producing giants
like the two first Pepins and Carl Martel;
and they knew that it needed a giant’s grasp to hold the mighty empire of the
Franks together. But the spirit of their father lived in both his sons, as
their enemies had soon good reason to know; and any natural hopes the revolted
nations may have founded on family dissensions were dispelled by the captivity
of Gripho, and the lasting harmony which existed
between Carloman and Pepin.
Having placed a Merovingian named Childeric on the throne, which their
father for some time before his death had left unoccupied, the young princes
marched an army towards Aquitaine; for Hunold the son
of Eudo, the sworn vassal of Carl Martel, had
manifested his rebellious intentions by throwing Lantfred, the Frankish ambassador, into prison.
Crossing the Loire, they devastated Aquitania as far as Bourges; and were on
the point of overrunning the whole country, when the intelligence of the still
more serious rebellion of the Swabians compelled them suddenly to break off their
campaign in the south, and return to the heart of their dominions. Preparations
of unusual magnitude had been made for the war by the Dukes of Swabia and
Bavaria, who had invited the Saxon and Slavonian tribes to make common cause
against the Franks. The sudden return of the Frankish army, however, frustrated
their half-completed plans. In the autumn of the same year, Carloman crossed the Rhine, fell upon the Swabian Duke Theobald before his Bavarian
allies were ready to take the field, and compelled him to renew his oath of
allegiance, and to give hostages for its observance.
THE FRANKS AND BAVARIANS.
In the meantime, Odilo, Duke of Bavaria, the
husband of the fugitive Princess Hiltrude, was doing
all in his power to strengthen himself against the expected attack of the
Franks, and was evidently acting in concert with Duke Hunold of Aquitaine. The defeat of the Swabians was a heavy blow to his hopes; but he
had gone too far to recede, and having united a body of Saxons and Slavonian
mercenaries with his own subjects, he took up a position on the farther side of
the river Lech, and stockaded the banks to
prevent the enemy from crossing. The Franks came up soon afterwards, but found
the Bavarians so strongly entrenched, that they lay fifteen days on the opposite
bank without attempting anything. After a diligent search, however, they
discovered a ford by which they crossed the river during the night, and,
falling on the unsuspecting enemy, put them to flight, and drove them with
great slaughter across the river Inn.
The Frankish princes are said to have remained for fifty-two days in the
enemies’ country; but their expedition partook more of the nature of a foray
than a conquest, and left the Bavarians in nearly the same condition of
semi-independence in which it had found them. The activity of the revolted
tribes rendered it dangerous for Carloman and Pepin
to lead their forces too far in any one direction. As Hunold had been saved by the revolt of the Swabians, so Odilo was now relieved from the presence of the Franks by diversions made in his
favor in two other quarters; by the Saxons, who had fallen upon Thuringia; and
by Hunold, who, emboldened by impunity and the
absence of the Franks, had crossed the Loire and was devastating the land as
far as Chartres. The Saxons claimed the first attention of the Frankish
leaders, since the latter dared not march towards the south with so dangerous
an enemy in their rear. Carloman is said to have
defeated the Saxon army, which consisted in all probability of undisciplined
marauders, in two great battles, and to have carried off one of their leaders,
named Theoderic, into
Austrasia. Pepin was, in the meantime, engaged with the Swabians under
Theobald, whom he soon reduced to obedience. Having thus, for the time, secured
their rear, the brother-warriors marched (in AD 745), with
united forces, against Hunold, who, conscious of his
utter inability to resist their undivided power, laid down his arms without a
contest, consented to give hostages, and to renew his brittle oaths of fealty.
Disgusted with his ill success, he soon afterwards resigned the government in
favor of his son Waifar,
and retired into the monastery of St. Philibert,
in the island of Rhé,
on the coast of Aquitaine.
We cannot fairly number Hunold among the
princes of Europe who have resigned their crowns from a real and settled
conviction of the worthlessness of all but spiritual goods and honors. The
precise motives which actuated him can only be guessed at; but the very last
explanation of his conduct to which we should have recourse is that he sought in
retirement a more undisturbed communion with God. The same chronicles which
record his abdication inform us, that in order to secure the undisputed
succession of the vacant throne to his son, he lured his own brother “by false
oaths” from Poitiers, and, after putting out his eyes, kept him in strict
confinement. Such was his preparation for the monastic life!
Though it is not easy to discover in what respect the Swabians were more
in fault in the war just mentioned than the other revolted nations, it is evident
that they incurred the special resentment of their Frankish conquerors. All had
broken their allegiance, and had sought to regain by force the independence of
which they had been forcibly deprived. Yet while the Bavarians and Aquitanians were merely compelled to renew their
engagements on honorable terms, the treatment of the Swabians has left an
indelible blot on the character of Carloman.
This brave and once powerful people had retired, after their defeat by
Pepin, into the fastnesses of the Alps, but were soon compelled to make their
submission, and to resume their former allegiance. In AD 746,
however, they appear to have meditated a new revolt, and were accused of having
incited the Bavarians to try once more the fortune of war. Rendered furious by
the seemingly interminable nature of the contest, Carloman appears to have thought himself justified in repaying faithlessness by
treachery of a far more heinous nature; and this is the only shadow of an
excuse which can be offered for his conduct. Having led his army to Cannstadt in AD 746,
he ordered Theobald, the Swabian duke, to join him with all his forces, in
obedience to the military ban. Theobald obeyed without suspicion, supposing
that he should be employed, in conjunction with the rest of Carloman’s forces, against
some common enemy.
“And there”, says the chronicler of Metz, “a great prodigy took place,
that one army seized and bound another without any of the perils of war!”. No
sooner had the two armies met together in an apparently friendly manner, than Carloman ordered his Franks to surround the Alemannians (Swabians), and
to disarm and bind them. He then instituted an inquiry respecting the aid
afforded the Bavarians; and, having seized those chiefs who had assisted Odilo “against the invincible princes, Carloman and Pepin, he mercifully corrected each according to his deserts”. Lanfried II received the vacant throne of Theobald, who, in
all probability, was one of those who lost their lives by Carloman’s merciful
correction. In the following year, the connection between the Carolingian
family and the Roman Church, which had grown continually closer, was still
farther strengthened by the voluntary abdication of Carloman,
and his admission into the monastic order. The reasons which induced this mighty
prince and successful warrior to take so singular a step are quite unknown.
Remorse for his recent treachery, disgust at the bloodshed he had caused and
witnessed, the sense of inferiority to his brother Pepin, and doubts as to the
continuance of fraternal harmony, a natural tendency to religious contemplation
increased by the influence of Boniface, whose earnest faith and spotless life
could not but make a deep impression upon all who knew him; these and other
causes will occur to the mind of every one as being, singly or in different
combinations, adequate to the result. Yet we can but guess at motives which
were unknown to the generations immediately succeeding him, and which he
himself perhaps would have found it difficult to define.
With the full concurrence of his brother Pepin, whose appetite for
worldly honors was by no means sated, Carloman set
out for Rome with a numerous retinue of the chief men in his kingdom, taking
with him magnificent presents for the Pope. He was received by Zachary with
great distinction; and by his advice Carloman vowed
obedience to the rules of St. Benedict before Optatus, the Abbot of Monte Casino, and founded a
monastery to St. Sylvester on the classic heights of Mount Soracte. But he was far too much
in earnest in his desire of solitude to find the neighborhood of Rome a
suitable or agreeable residence. The newly founded monastery was soon thronged
with curious visitors, eager to behold the princely monk who had given up all
to follow Christ. He therefore abandoned Mount Soracte, and, concealing as far as possible his
name and rank, enrolled himself among the Benedictine monks of Monte Casino.
PEPIN BECOMES SOLE RULER.
As no stipulation had been made in favor of Carloman’s son Drogo,
Pepin now became sole ruler of the whole Frankish empire. It is a no less
singular than pleasing fact that one of the very first uses which Pepin made of
his undivided authority was to release his brother Gripho from his long imprisonment; singular, because it seems to imply that Carloman, whose susceptibility to religious influences
cannot be doubted, was the only obstacle to this act of generosity and mercy.
It is indeed open to us to suppose that Carloman foresaw more clearly than his brother the injurious consequences of Gripho’s restoration to
freedom; for the policy of this step was certainly more questionable than its
generosity. The liberated prince thought more of what was withheld than of what
was granted, and had never ceased to consider himself entitled to an equal
share of the dominions of his father.
In AD 748, not long after his release, while Pepin was
holding a council of the bishops and seigniors at Düren, Gripho was forming a party among the younger men to
support his pretensions to the throne. In company of some of these he fled to
the Saxons, who were always ready to make common cause against the hated
Franks. Pepin, well aware of the extremely inflammable materials by which his
frontiers were surrounded, and dreading a renewal of the conflagration he had
so lately quenched in blood, immediately took the field; marching through
Thuringia, he attacked and defeated the Nordosquavi,
a Saxon tribe who lived on the river Wipper, between
the Bode and Saale. The Saxon leader Theoderic was
taken prisoner for the third time, and a considerable number of the captives
taken on this occasion were compelled to receive Christian baptism, according
to the usual policy of that age.
After fruitless negotiations between the brothers, Gripho endeavored to make a stand at the river Oker; failing in this, he fled to the Bavarians,
among whom an enemy of Pepin was sure to find a welcome. After devastating the
Saxon territory for forty days, and reimposing the tribute formerly exacted by
Clotaire, Pepin directed his march towards Bavaria, in pursuit of his brother. Odilo, the former duke of this country, was now dead, and
had been succeeded by his son Tassilo, who ruled
under the influence of the Frankish Princess Hiltrude.
These inveterate enemies of Pepin were also joined by a mighty Bavarian chief,
called Suitger, and the Swabian duke, Lanfried II.
If we understand rightly a passage in the annals of Metz, Gripho succeeded in depriving Tassilo and his mother of the reins of Government and making himself master of Bavaria. Gripho, Suitger, and Lanfried united their forces, but not venturing to await
the attack of the Franks upon the Lech, as Odilo had
done on a former occasion, they retreated at once behind the Inn, which had
already proved so effectual a bulwark. Pepin, however, no longer embarrassed by
a variety of enemies, determined to bring the matter to a final decision, and
was already making preparations to cross the Inn, when the leaders of the
allied army, convinced of the futility of braving the superior force of the
Franks, voluntarily surrendered themselves prisoners of war. The leniency with
which the Bavarians were treated seems to imply that favorable terms of
surrender bad been granted, at any rate, to them. Tassilo received back his duchy, for which he had to swear fealty to the Frankish
ruler; while Alemannia was finally incorporated with the Frankish dominions.
The fate of Lanfried II, the last of the Swabian
dukes, is not known; but the character and general policy of Pepin are a
guarantee that he was not treated with unnecessary harshness. Gripho was once more indebted to his brother for life and
liberty, and not only received a full pardon, but was endowed with twelve
counties and the town of Mans—a fortune splendid enough to have satisfied the
desires of anyone who had not dreamed too much of independence and royal
authority.
The ill success which attended the efforts of Gripho,
whose claims but a few years before would have rallied thousands of malcontents
round his standard, and the rapid and easy suppression of the Swabian and
Bavarian revolts, afford us evidence that the once bitter opposition of the
seigniors, both lay and clerical, to the establishment of the Carolingian
throne, was finally overcome; and that Pepin possessed a degree of settled
authority which neither his father nor his grandfather had enjoyed. Many
circumstances contributed to this superiority in the position of Pepin, even as
compared with his immediate predecessor. He had, in the first place, the
great advantage of a quiet and undisputed succession to his father’s dignities.
His authority could not be regarded merely as that of a great officer of the
crown or a successful warrior, but had already acquired an hereditary
character, as founded on the mighty deeds of a series of noble ancestors: in
the second place, the military constitution of the country had acquired
consistency in the long and successful wars of Carl Martel. This constitution,
as we shall show, was intimately connected with the seigniorship,
now fully developed, and the system of beneficia, or non-hereditary
grants, by which the Frankish rulers endeavored to secure the services of the
powerful chieftains and their dependent followers; and lastly, we must
attribute much of the tranquility enjoyed by Pepin to the vigour with which Carl Martel chastised his unruly subjects, and forced the boldest to
succumb to the valor and fortune of his glorious race. And hence it was that
Pepin found both strength and leisure to regulate by wise laws, the dominions
which his father had only been able to overawe by his upraised sword. In this
work he was ably seconded by Boniface, whose counsel he sought on all important
occasions, and to whom, in turn, he gave material aid in the grand objects of
the noble martyr's life—the extension of the Christian faith, and the
regulation of the visible Church according to the Roman ritual.
SYNOD OF LESTINES.
It was during the mayoralty of Pepin, and not, as is generally assumed,
in that of Carl Martel, that the famous and important act of ‘Secularization’
took place, which will again be spoken of in the chapter on the Church. The
practice into which Carl Martel had been driven by his necessities, of
bestowing ecclesiastical benefices on laymen who assumed the priesthood with
purely secular views, was inconsistent with the peace and good order, and
inimical to all the higher interests, of the Christian Church. As an
exceptional state of things, however, even rigid disciplinarians and pious
churchmen like Boniface had thought it expedient to yield a tacit assent to the
employment of Church revenues for military purposes. But when, on the one hand,
the consequences of these irregular and violent expedients had become, with the
lapse of time, more clearly evident; and, on the other, a stricter discipline,
and a more religious and ecclesiastical spirit had been diffused through the
great body of the clergy by the labors of Boniface and his school, it became
more and more repugnant to the feelings of all true friends of the Church to
see its highest offices filled by masquerading laymen, who had nothing of the
priest about them but the name and dress. In this repugnance we have every
reason to believe that both Carloman and Pepin
largely shared; and yet, though not engaged in an internecine struggle like
their father, they carried on expensive wars, and needed large supplies of land
and money. It was not therefore to be expected that they should ease the Church
from all participation in the public burdens, especially at a time when it had
absorbed a very large proportion of the national wealth. Under these
circumstances, a compromise was effected by the influence of Boniface at the
Synod of Lestines. In
this important council the assembled bishops consented, in consideration of the
urgent necessities of the State, to make a voluntary surrender of a portion of
the funds of the Church; with the stipulation that the civil rulers should, on
their part, abstain for the future from all arbitrary interference with its
discipline and property.
Preparatory to the meeting of the Synod at Lestines, Carloman and
Pepin summoned, on the 21st of April, AD 742 (at Saltz?), a council of the great
seigniors, temporal and spiritual, to consider how the laws of God and of the
Church, which had fallen into confusion and ruin under former rulers, might be
best restored.”For more than eighty years”, says
Boniface, in his epistle to the Pope on this occasion, “the Franks have neither
held a synod, nor appointed an archbishop, nor enacted or renewed their canons;
but most of the bishoprics are given to rapacious laymen or dissolute and
avaricious priests for their own use; and though some of these profess to be
chaste, yet they are either drunkards or followers of the chase; or they go
armed into battle, and shed with their own hands the blood of Christians as
well as heathens!”.
Before this first assembly, which was a council of state, and not an
ecclesiastical synod, Boniface as papal legate brought forward his measures for
the reform of the Church and the settlement of its relations to the State.
Through the influence of Carloman many of these
propositions received the sanction of the council, and they must be regarded as
concessions made by the State to the Church. It was enacted that annual synods
should be held; that the property of which the churches and monasteries had
been violently deprived should be restored; that the counts and bishops in
their respective jurisdictions should be directed to put down all heathen
practices (to which the people in some parts of the country were still
addicted); that the rules of St. Benedict should be reintroduced into the
monasteries; and that the clergy should be prohibited from war and the chase,
from sexual intercourse, and the use of military accoutrements.
In the following year (743), the Synod of Lestines itself was summoned for the final settlement of the points just mentioned; and
it was here that the terms on which the consent of Carloman and Pepin to the proposition of Boniface had been given, were made public. “We
also enact”, runs the decree of these princes, “by the counsel of God’s
servants, and of the Christian people, that, in consideration of impending wars
and the persecutions to which we are subject from surrounding nations, we be
allowed, by the indulgence of God, to retain for some time sub precario et censu a
portion of the Church’s property, for the support of our army; on these
conditions, that a solidus (gold piece of 12 denarii) should be paid annually
to the church or monastery for every estate, and that the church be reinvested
with its property at the death of the present holder. Should, however,
necessity compel, or the prince ordain it, the precarium (or
life-interest) must be renewed and a new document drawn up; and, in every case,
care must be taken that the churches and monasteries, of which the property
is in precario (granted for a single
life), suffer no want or poverty. But if poverty renders it necessary, the
whole property must be restored to the church or house of God”.
It is not surprising that the remarkable document before us has been
quoted, on the one hand, in evidence of the absolute power which the
Carolingian mayors assumed over the Church; and, on the other, of the
inviolability of Church property, and the disapprobation with which the conduct
of Carl Martel was regarded even by his own sons. Our first impression, on
reading this decree, is that the clergy had little reason to rejoice in the
results of Boniface’s mediation between themselves and the civil power. Not
only are the grants of ecclesiastical property, made to laymen for secular and
warlike purposes, retained during the lives of the occupants, but express
provision is made for the renewal of similar grants, “when necessity compels or
the prince commands it”. The powers here given of employing the superfluous
wealth of the Church for secular purposes could hardly be greater; yet such a
relation between Church and State is quite consistent with the circumstances of
the times.
Humanly speaking, the Frankish Church, surrounded as it was on either
side by the still heathen Germans and the Mohammedan conquerors, owed its
preservation to the sword of Carl Martel. Boniface himself emphatically
declares that the success of his missionary efforts was to be ascribed in a
great measure to the same potent instrument. The influence which the great
ecclesiastical dignitaries derived from their sacred calling—the great extent
and valuable immunities of their lands, and their skill in forming and leading
parties in the State—had been greatly lessened by the bold inroads of the same
vigorous prince upon their exclusive privileges, and his triumph over the
factious nobles. The irresponsible power, too, of the bishops within the Church
itself was also curtailed by the successful efforts of Boniface to restore the
chain of subordination among the clergy, and to bring the whole body under the
absolute supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. The important results of this change
are sufficiently evident; for this head of the Western Church was himself an
unwilling tributary to the Longobards, and a suppliant
to the Frankish mayors for deliverance from triumphant enemies.
We cannot, then, be surprised that the ecclesiastical synods should
submit to any terms which promised a settled state of things for the future.
And on close examination of the acts of the Synod of Lestines, we shall find that, though much is
conceded under the pressure of the moment, the future is carefully provided
for. The State acknowledges, in the first place, that certain lands now held by
laymen had belonged, and did still essentially belong, to the Church; and its
claim, though held in abeyance, is effectually kept alive by the payment of a
small fixed rent to the original owners; and, secondly, ecclesiastical property
is spoken of as a whole; a point of very great importance—since the possessions
of every religious body, however weak in itself, were thus placed under the
protection of the universal Church.
The vast funds which the ‘Secularisation’
placed at the disposal of the Frankish princes contributed in no small degree
to establish the Carolingian throne; for it enabled them to carry out to its
full extent the system of beneficial (or non-hereditary) grants, and to secure
the services of the powerful seigniors, who were bound to the Sovereign, not
only by a sense of gratitude, but by the hope of future favors and the fear of
deprivation.
A change took place at the period at which we have now arrived, which,
though easily and noiselessly made, and apparently but nominal, forms an
important era in Frankish history. It costs us an effort to remember that Carl
Martel, Carloman and Pepin, were not kings, but
officers of another, who still bore the royal title, and occasionally and
exclusively wore the crown and sat upon the throne. Carloman and Pepin, when they were heading great armies, receiving oaths of allegiance
from conquered princes, and giving away duchies, were mayors of the palace to
Childeric III, a Merovingian king. Even they had thought the time not yet come
for calling themselves by their proper name, and had placed Childeric on the
throne. The king’s name was a tower of strength, which they who had met and
defeated every other enemy seemed to shrink from attacking.
The foundations of the Merovingian throne, indeed, had been thoroughly,
perhaps systematically, sapped. The king-making mayors had set up monarchs and
deposed them at their pleasure; they had even left the throne vacant for a
time, as if to prove whether the nation was yet cured of its inveterate notion
that none but a Merovingian could wear a Frankish crown. This last experiment
resulted, as we have said, in the placing of Childeric III upon the throne; an
act by which Carloman and Pepin must have thought
that some advantage would be gained, or some danger be avoided. At the
commencement of their reign powerful tribes were in rebellion, and
semi-dependent princes might think themselves absolved by a change of dynasty
from their oaths and engagements, and regard revolt as a duty as well as a
pleasure. The Franks themselves had not yet received sufficient proof that the
sons were worthy of their sire; and the heathen among them naturally clung to
the primeval race.
But circumstances changed. The mayors became more and more the heads of
a great semi-feudal system, to the members of which they were the sole source
of wealth, authority and honor. The intestine troubles of the kingdom had in
great measure been healed; the revolted tribes were reduced to more complete
obedience; Pepin himself acquired great military renown, and the limits of the
empire were extended to the furthest point which they had ever reached. Pepin
was already king indeed; and even towards the adoption of the royal name and
style some gradual progress had been made. It had become customary to reckon
in dates by the years of the mayor’s office as well as the king’s reign. The
title of princeps and dux is freely given in the chronicles to Carl Martel and
his sons, who regarded the royal palaces as their property, and conferred both
lands and dignities in their own name. There was but one step more to the
throne, and that step was taken at last, when there was scarcely a man in the
empire who had either the power or the wish to prevent it.
PEPIN USURPS THE CROWN.
In AD 750 Pepin assumed the name of king, with the full
consent of the nation and the sanction of the Pope; and the last of the
Merovingians was shorn of his royal locks, the emblems of his power, and sent
to end his days in the monastery of St. Bertin, at Sithiu (St. Omer in Artois).
The immediate motive for the change is not apparent; and the remarkable
absence of all impatience on the part of Pepin to assume the royal name seems
to justify the notion that the coup-de-grâce was given to the
Merovingian dynasty by another hand than his. It might perhaps have been still
deferred, but for the growing intimacy of the relations between the
Carolingians and the Pope.
The Bishops of Rome had by no means surmounted the difficulties and
dangers by which they had been long surrounded. The Greek emperors, to whom
they were nominally subject, were too weak either to afford them the necessary
protection against their enemies, or to enforce obedience to themselves; and,
in addition to this, the Eastern and Western Churches were continually
diverging from each other, both in their theological views and secular objects.
The Longobards hung over the eternal city like
a cloud which might at any moment send forth the destructive flash. Its only
chance of safety for the moment, its only hope of independence and spiritual
dominion in the nearer and more distant future, were founded upon a close
alliance with the Carolingian dynasty. It was a cherished object, therefore,
with the Popes to bind this illustrious family to themselves by the strongest
of ties, the sense of common interest and mutual indispensability. It was
probable that Pepin would one day ascend the Frankish throne, and it was of the
highest moment to the Bishops of Rome to assume the initiative in this
inevitable dynastic revolution; for thus they would acquire a title to the
gratitude of the new king, and give him an interest in the preservation of the
source from which his royal title seemed to spring. The part which Boniface
took in this transaction is unknown; but his position as the most zealous
supporter of the papacy, and the intimate friend and counselor of Pepin, leads
to the conjecture that a change so much in accordance with his known views was
not made without his cooperation. All that has been transmitted to us is the
fact that, in AD 750 (or 751), an embassy, composed of
Burchard Bishop of Würzburg, Fulrad Abbot
of St. Denys, and Pepin’s own chaplain,
appeared at Rome at the Papal Court, and laid the following question before
Pope Zachary for his decision: “Whether it was expedient that one who was
possessed of no authority in the land should continue to retain the name of
king, or whether it should be transferred to him who really exercised the royal
power”.
It is not to be imagined for a moment that Zachary was unprepared with
his reply to this momentous question, which would certainly not have been
proposed had there been any doubt respecting the answer. The Pope replied, that
“he who really governed should also bear the royal name”; and the embassy returned
to Pepin with this message, or, as some writers take a pleasure in calling it,
this command. A grand council of the nation was assembled at Soissons in the
same year, and the majordomus was
unanimously elected sole king of the Franks, and soon afterwards anointed and
crowned, with his wife Bertrada, by his old and
faithful friend Boniface.
This solemn consecration by the use of holy oil, and other ceremonies,
observed for the first time at the coronation of the Carolingian king, were not
without their important significance. The sentiment of legitimacy was very
strongly seated in the hearts of the Frankish people. The dethroned family had
exclusively supplied the nation with their rulers from all time; no one could
trace their origin, or point to a Merovingian who was not either a king, or the
kinsman of a king. It was far otherwise with Pepin. He was the first of
his race who had not fought for the office of majordomus with competitors as noble as
himself. It was little more than a century since his namesake of Landen had been dismissed from his office by the
arbitrary will of Dagobert. The extraordinary fertility of the Carolingian
family in warriors and statesmen had hitherto enabled them to hold their own
against all gainsayers. But if the new dynasty was to rest on something more
certain and durable than the uninterrupted transmission of great bodily and
mental powers in a single family, it was of vital importance to the
Carolingians to rear their throne upon foundations the depth of which was
beyond the ken of vulgar eyes. Such a foundation could be nothing else than the
sanction of heaven, and was to be sought in the Christian Church, in the fiat
of God’s representative on earth, who could set apart the Carolingians as a
chosen race, and bestow upon them a heavenly claim to the obedience of their
countrymen.
We have already referred to the successful efforts of Boniface and his
followers in the cause of Roman supremacy. The belief in the power of the
Bishops of Rome, as successors of St. Peter, to bind and to loose, to set up
and to set down, had already taken root in the popular mind, and rendered the
sanction of the popes as efficacious a legitimiser as the cloud of mystery and fable
which enveloped the origin of the fallen Merovingians.
So gradually was this change of dynasty effected, so skillfully was the
new throne founded on well-consolidated authority, warlike renown, good
government, and religious faith, that as far as we can learn from history, not
a single voice was raised against the aspiring mayor, when his warriors,
more majorum, raised
him on the shield, and bore him thrice through the joyful throng; and when
Boniface anointed him with holy oil, as King of the Franks “by the grace of
God”, not a single champion was found throughout that mighty empire, to draw
his sword in the cause of the last monarch of the house of Clovis.
Pepin was not long allowed to enjoy his new dignity in peace, but was
quickly called upon to exchange the amenities of the royal palace for the toils
and dangers of the battle-field.
The Saxons had already recovered from, and were desirous of avenging,
the chastisement inflicted upon them; and having rebelled “in their way”, were
now marching upon the Rhine. But Pepin, who had not ceased to be a general when
he became a king, collected a large army, with which he crossed the Rhine, and
entering the territory of the Saxons, wasted it with fire and sword, and
carried back a large number of captives into his own dominions. “When the
Saxons saw this”, says the chronicler, “they were moved by penitence; and, with
their usual fear, begged for the king’s mercy, declaring that they would take
an oath of fidelity, and pay more tribute than they had ever paid before, and
never revolt again. King Pepin returned, by the aid of Christ, in great triumph
to Bonn”.
It was on his return from this campaign that he received the news of his
brother Gripho’s death.
This restless and unhappy prince—whom the indelible notion of his right to a
throne rendered incapable of enjoying the noble fortune allotted to him by his
brother—had fled to Waifar,
Duke of Gascony, in the hope of inducing him to take up arms. But Waifar was not in a
condition to protect him; and when the ambassadors of Pepin demanded that he
should be given up, Gripho was obliged to seek
another asylum. The fugitive then directed his course to King Haistulph, foreseeing, probably, that Pepin would be drawn
into the feud between the Pope and the Longobards,
the subjects of Haistulph, and therefore thinking
that he might already regard the latter as the enemy of his brother. As he was
passing the Alps, however, with a small retinue, he was set upon, in the valley
of St. Jean de Maurienne,
by Count Theodo of
Vienne and the Transjuran Count
Friedrich. Gripho was slain, but not until after a
desperate struggle, in which both the counts above mentioned also lost their
lives.
Pepin now retired to his royal residence at Dietenhoven, on the Moselle,
and spent the few months of peace that followed the Saxon war in ordering the
affairs of the Church; which he effected chiefly through the instrumentality of
ecclesiastical synods. The influence of these assemblies had very much
increased since Boniface first summoned them, and their jurisdiction extended
itself beyond the sphere of merely ecclesiastical matters into the wide and
undefined field of public morals.
THE LONGOBARDS.
King Pepin was now called upon to repay the obligations conferred upon
him by the Papacy when it hallowed his usurpation of the Frankish crown. The
influence of Carl Martel with his ally and friend Luitprand,
and the reverence which the latter entertained for the Popes in their spiritual
character, had caused a temporary lull in the affairs of Italy.But Luitprand died about two years after the accession of
Pepin, and was succeeded, first by his grandson Hildebrand, who reigned seven months,and then by Ratchis Duke
of Friuli, under whom the Longobards renewed the war
against Rome. In this emergency, Zachary, who, like many other popes, trusted
greatly and with good reason to his personal influence over the rude kings and
warriors of the age, went himself to Perugia to beg a peace from Ratchis.
The result was favorable to a degree beyond his highest expectations.
The Lombard monarch not only recalled his troops—which were already besieging
the towns of the Pentapolis—and granted a peace of forty years, but was so
deeply affected by the dignified demeanor and eloquent exhortations of the holy
father, that, like another Carloman, he renounced his
earthly crown, and sought a refuge from the cares of government in the quiet
cloisters of Monte Casino.
Ratchis was
succeeded in AD 749 by his brother Haistulph, a man by no means so sensible to spiritual
influences, and remarkable for his energy and strength of purpose. In three
years from his accession to the Lombard throne, he succeeded in driving out Eutychius, the last exarch of the Greek emperors, from the
Exarchate of Ravenna, and made himself master of the city. Having thus secured
the possession of the southern portion of the Roman territory, he marched upon
Rome itself; and when Pope Zachary died, 15th March, in the year AD 752, it
must have been with the melancholy conviction that all his efforts to preserve
the independence of Rome, and to further the lofty claims of the Papacy, were
about to prove fruitless. Once more was Hannibal at the gates; but, fortunately
for the interest of the threatened city, the successor of Zachary, Stephen II,
was a man in every way equal to the situation. By a well-timed embassy and
costly presents, he stayed the uplifted arm of the Lombard for the moment, and,
as often happens in human affairs, by gaining time he gained everything.
HAISTULPH THREATENS ROME.
After remaining quiet for a few months, Haistulph again resumed his threatening attitude towards the Romans, and demanded a
palpable proof of their subjection to himself, in the shape of a poll-tax of a
gold solidus per head. A fresh embassy from the Pope, which the Lombard king
received at Nepe (near Sutri, N. of Rome), met with no success, and the holy
Abbots of St. Vincent and St. Benedict, who composed it, returned to their
monasteries in despair.
Nor was any greater effect produced by the arrival of John, the imperial Silentiarius, who was sent by the Greek emperor from
Constantinople. This pompous messenger brought letters for the Pope and King Haistulph, in which the latter was called upon to desist
from his present undertaking and to restore the whole of the territory of which
he had unjustly robbed the Grecian empire. The high-sounding language and
haughty requirements of the Byzantians, unsupported
as they were by any material power, could make no impression upon such a man as Haistulph, and he dismissed the imperial envoy with
an unmeaning answer.
The danger of Rome had now reached its highest point, and no deliverance
seemed nigh. “King Haistulph”, in the language of the
chronicler, “was inflamed with rage, and, like a roaring lion, never ceased to
utter the most dreadful threats against the Romans, declaring that he would
slay them all with the sword, if they did not submit themselves to his
rule”. An appeal which the Pope had made to the Byzantine emperors for protection
was entirely fruitless, and the Romans were utterly unequal to sustain unaided
a contest with the warlike Longobards. It was in this
extremity that Stephen determined to test once more the value of that close
relation which it had been the object of so many popes to form with the
Frankish people, and more especially with the Carolingian family. He knew that
it would be no easy matter to induce King Pepin or his Franks to undertake an
expedition into Italy with a force sufficient for the object in view. He felt,
too, that a mere letter from Pepin, such as Carl Martel had sent to
his good friend Luitprand, would be of no avail to
turn the ambitious Haistulph from his purpose. He
therefore adopted the singular resolution of crossing the Alps, throwing himself
at the feet of the Frankish monarch and thus giving him a convincing and
affecting proof that the very existence of the Papacy was at stake.
With this view the holy father, seeing that all his entreaties “for the
fold which had been entrusted to him (Rome), and the lost sheep” (Istria and
the Exarchate of Ravenna), were fruitless, started from Rome on the 14th of
October, AD 753, in company with the Abbot Rotdigang and Duke Autchar, whom Pepin had
previously sent to Stephen with general promises of support. He was also
followed by a considerable number of the Roman clergy and nobility. On his
journey northwards he passed through the city of Pavia, where Haistulph then was; and though the latter had forbidden him
to say a word about restoration of territory, he once more endeavored, by rich
presents and earnest entreaties, to induce the king to give up his conquests
and forego his hostile purposes. He was warmly seconded by Pepin’s envoys, and another epistle from the Greek
emperor; but the mind of the fierce Longobards remained unchanged.
It is evident, indeed, that he would have prevented Stephen by force
from continuing his journey but for the threats of the Frankish ambassadors. As
it was he endeavored to intimidate the Pope in the presence of Rotdigang into a denial of
his wish to proceed to the court of Pepin; and only then dismissed him when he
saw that Stephen would yield to nothing but actual violence.
CORONATION OF PEPIN AND
BERTRADA.
Pepin was still at his palace at Dietenhofen, when the intelligence reached him that
the Pope, with a splendid retinue, had passed the Great St. Bernard, and was
hastening, according to agreement, to the monastery of St. Maurice at Agaunum. It had been expected
that the king himself would be there to receive the illustrious fugitive; but
Stephen on his arrival found in his stead the Abbot Fulrad and Duke Rothard, who received the holy father with every mark of
joy and reverence, and conducted him to the palace of Pontyon, near Châlons, where he arrived on the 6th
of January, AD 754. As a still further mark of veneration, the
young prince Carl was sent forward to welcome Stephen at a distance of about
seventy miles from Pontyon;
and Pepin himself is said to have gone out three miles on foot to meet him, and
to have acted as his marshal, walking by the side of his palfrey. The
extraordinary honors paid by Pepin to the aged exile proceeded partly, no
doubt, from the reverence and sympathy which his character and circumstances
called forth. But his conduct might also result from a wise regard to his own
interests, and a desire of inspiring his subjects with a mysterious awe for the
spiritual potentate at whose behest he had himself assumed the crown.
The decisive conference between Pepin and Stephen took place at Pontyon on the 16th
January. The Pope appeared before the Frankish monarch in the garb and posture
of a suppliant, and received a promise of protection, and the restoration of
all the territory of which the Longobards had
deprived him.
The winter, during which no military operations could be undertaken, was
spent by Stephen at the monastery of Saint Denis at Paris. The spectacle of the
harmony and friendship subsisting between the Roman Pontiff and King Pepin was
calculated to produce a good effect on the Romance subjects of the latter; who,
on account of his German origin and tendencies, was regarded with less
attachment in Neustria and Burgundy than in his Austrasian dominions. This effect was increased by Stephen’s celebrating in person that
solemn act of consecration which he had already performed by proxy. At the
second coronation of Pepin, which took place with great solemnity and pomp in
the church of St. Denis on the 28th July, AD 754, his
Queen, Bertrada, and her two sons Carl and Carloman, were also anointed1 with the holy oil, and the
two last were declared the rightful heirs of their father's empire. That
nothing might be wanting on the part of the Church to set apart the Carolingian
family as the chosen of God, Stephen laid a solemn obligation on the Franks,
that “throughout all future ages neither they nor their posterity should ever
presume to appoint a king over themselves from any other family”. The title of Patricius, which had first been worn by Clovis, was
bestowed by the Pope upon the king and his sons. It is difficult to understand
how this dignity could at this period be imparted to any one without the authority of the Byzantine emperor. Constantine (nicknamed Copronymus) may indeed have taken the opportunity of the
Pope’s journey to offer the patriciate to Pepin; but it is more consistent with
the circumstances we have described to suppose that Stephen was acting
irregularly and without authority in conferring a Roman title on the Frankish
king; and that he intended at the same time to give a palpable proof of his
independence of the Emperor who had neglected to aid him, and to point out
Pepin as his future ally and protector.
The task which Pepin had undertaken to perform was by no means an easy
one, nor did the execution of it depend solely on himself. The empire indeed
was enjoying an unwonted freedom from foreign wars and domestic broils; but the
great vassals of the crown were averse to distant campaigns, both from the
length of time they consumed, and the ruinous expense of maintaining followers
far from home.
On the 1st of March, AD 755, however, he summoned his
council of state at Bernacum (Braine),
where the war against the Longobards was agreed to,
provided no other means could be found to reinstate the Pope. In the meantime
ambassadors were despatched to Haistulph,
with terms which show that the Franks were by no means eager for the
expedition. King Pepin on this occasion styles himself “Defender of the holy
Roman Church by Divine appointment” and demands that the “territories and towns
should be restored”—not to the Byzantine emperor, to whom they at any rate
nominally belonged, but “to the blessed St. Peter and the Church and
commonwealth of the Romans”. It is at this crisis of affairs that Carloman, the brother of Pepin, once more appears upon the
stage, and in a singular character—viz. as opponent of the Pope. Haistulph, by what influence we are not informed, prevailed
upon him to make a journey to the Frankish court, for the purpose of
counteracting the effect of Stephen’s representations. He met of course with no
success, and was sent by Pepin and Stephen into a monastery at Vienne, where he
died in the same year.
Haistulph on his part was equally
determined, and war became inevitable. He would make no promise concerning the
conquered territory, but would grant a safe conduct to Stephen back to his own
diocese. The lateness of the season allowed of no lengthened negotiations.
Immediately after the receipt of Haistulph’s answer
Pepin began his march towards Italy, accompanied by Stephen; and having sent
forward a detachment to occupy the passes of the Alps, he followed it with the
whole force of the empire. Passing through Lyons and Vienne, he made his way
to Maurienne, with
the intention of crossing the Alps by the valley of Susa, at the foot of Mont
Cenis. This important pass, however, had been occupied by Haistulph,
who had pitched his camp there and was prepared to dispute the passage.
According to the chroniclers, he endeavored to strengthen his position by the
same warlike machines which he had “wickedly designed for the destruction of
the Roman state and the Apostolic Chair”. The onward march of the Franks was
effectually checked for the moment, and Pepin pitched his camp on the river
Arc. In a short time, however, a few of the more adventurous of his soldiers
made their way through the mountains into the valley of Susa, where Haistulph lay. Their inferior numbers emboldened the Longobards, who immediately attacked them.
“The Franks”, says the chronicler, “seeing that their own strength and
resources could not save them, invoked the aid of God and the holy Apostle
Peter; whereupon the engagement began, and both sides fought bravely. But
when King Haistulph beheld the loss which his men
were suffering, he betook himself to flight, after having lost nearly the whole
of his army, with the dukes, counts and chief men of the Longobards”. The main body of Pepin’s army
then passed the Alps without resistance, and spread themselves over the plains
of Italy as far as Pavia, in which the Lombard king had taken refuge. The
terrible ravages of the invaders, who plundered and burnt all the towns and
villages which lay along their route, and the imminent danger which threatened
himself and his royal city, subdued for the moment the stubborn spirit of Haistulph, and he earnestly besought the Frankish prelates
and nobles to intercede for him with their ‘merciful’ sovereign. He promised to
restore Ravenna and all the other towns which he had taken “from the holy see”
to keep faithfully to his allegiance to Pepin, and never again to inflict any
injury on the Apostolic Chair or the Roman state. The Pope himself, who had no
desire to see the Franks too powerful in Italy, earnestly begged his mighty
protector “to shed no more Christian blood, but to put an end to the strife by
peaceful means”. Pepin was by no means sorry to be spared the siege of
Pavia, and having received forty hostages and caused Haistulph to ratify his promises by the most solemn oaths, he sent the Pope with a
splendid retinue to Rome, and led his army homewards laden with booty.
POPE STEPHEN’S LETTERS TO PEPIN.
But Haistulph was not the man to sit down
quietly under a defeat, or to forego a long cherished purpose. In the following
year he renewed the attack upon the Roman territory with a fury heightened by
the desire of vengeance. Rome itself was besieged, and the church of St. Peter
on the Vatican sacrilegiously defiled. Pope Stephen II, from whose life and
letters we gain our knowledge of these circumstances, repeatedly wrote to
Pepin and his sons for aid, in the most urgent, and at times indignant terms.
In one of his epistles, St. Peter himself is made to address them as “his
adopted sons” and to chide the delay and indecision of the king. After assuring
them that not he (the Apostle) only, but “the Mother of God, the ever-Virgin
Mary”, and “thrones and dominions, and the whole army of Heaven, and the
martyrs and confessors of Christ, and all who are pleasing to God”, earnestly
sought and conjured them to save the holy see, the Apostle promises, in case of
their compliance, that he will prepare for them “the highest and most glorious
tabernacles" and bestow on them "the rewards of eternal recompense
and the infinite joys of paradise”. “But if”, he adds, “which we do not expect,
you should make any delay, know that, for your neglect of my exhortation, you
are alienated from the kingdom of God and from eternal life”. When speaking in
his own person Stephen says, “Know that the Apostle Peter holds firmly in his
hand the deed of gift which was granted by your hands”. Nor does he neglect to
remind the Frankish princes of their obligation to the Papacy and the return
that they were expected to make. “Therefore”, he says, “has the Lord, at the
intercession of the Apostle Peter and by means of our lowliness, consecrated
you as kings, that through you the holy Church might be exalted and the prince
of the Apostles regain his lawful possessions”.
The boundless promises and awful denunciations of the Pope might have
been alike unavailing, had not other and stronger
motives inclined the king to make a second expedition into Italy. The interests
of his dynasty were so closely connected with those of the Roman Church, that
he could not desert the Pope in this imminent peril without weakening the
foundations of his throne; and his honor as a warrior and a king seemed to
require that the Lombards should be punished for their breach of faith. The
influence of Boniface, too (who was still alive, though he died before the end
of the campaign), was no doubt exerted in behalf of the Papacy which he had
done so much to raise. Pepin determined to save the Pope, but he did so at the
imminent risk of causing a revolt among his own vassals, who openly and loudly
expressed their disapproval of the war. “This war” (against the Longobards), says Einhard, “was undertaken with the
greatest difficulty, for some of the chief men of the Franks with whom he
(Pepin) was accustomed to take counsel were so strongly opposed to his wishes
that they openly declared that they would desert the king and return home”.
Pepin found means to pacify or overawe these turbulent dissentients, and
persisted in his determination once more to save the head of the Church from
the hands of his enemies. In this second expedition Pepin was accompanied by
his nephew Tassilo, who, in obedience to the war-ban
of his liege lord, joined him with the Bavarian troops. The Frankish army
marched through Châlons and Geneva to the same valley of Maurienne and to the passes of Mont Cenis, which, as in the former year, were occupied by
the troops of Haistulph. The Franks, however, in
spite of all resistance, made their way into Italy, and took a fearful
vengeance for the broken treaty, destroying and burning everything within their
reach, and giving no quarter to their perfidious enemies. They then closely
invested Pavia; and Haistulph, convinced of his utter
inability to cope with Pepin, again employed the willing services of the
Frankish seigniors to negotiate a peace. Pepin on his side accepted the
overtures made to him with singular facility, but obliged Haistulph to give fresh hostages, to renew his oaths, and, what was more to the purpose,
to deliver up a third of the royal treasure in the city of Pavia. Haistulph also agreed to renew an annual tribute, which is
said to have been paid for a long time previously to the Frankish monarchs.
And thus a second time was the Papacy delivered from a danger which went
nigh to nip its budding greatness, and reduce it to the rank of a Lombard
bishopric.
Haistulph died while hunting in a forest,
before he had had time to forget the rough lessons he had received and to
recover from his losses in blood and treasure. The fact that his life was
preserved while he was besieging Rome and desecrating St. Peter’s church, and
the consideration that good men too are sometimes killed while hunting, did not
prevent the chroniclers from giving an unanimous verdict of “struck by Divine
vengeance”. We know but little of him beyond this, that he was an ambitious man
with a strong will, and not more scrupulous in keeping oaths than the other
princes of his age. Unfortunately we cannot use the letters of the Roman
pontiffs as sources for the biography of their opponents, on account of the
exceeding vigour of their style. “The tyrant Haistulph” says Stephen II, “the child of the devil, who
thirsted for the blood of Christians and destroyed churches, has been struck by
the hand of God, and thrust into the abyss of hell in the same days in which a
year before he had marched out to destroy Rome”.
A danger from another quarter, which threatened the development of the
papal power, was also warded off by the power and steadfastness of Pepin. When
the Exarchate of Ravenna was overrun by the Longobards,
it was taken, not from the Pope, but from the Greek Emperor; and even the towns
and territories which were virtually under the sway of the papal chair, were,
nominally at least, portions of the Eastern Roman Empire. As Stephen had never
formally renounced his allegiance to the Emperor, he could receive even the
Roman duchy only as a representative of his sovereign, and to the other remains
of the Roman Empire in Italy he had no claim whatever. The Longobards had dispossessed the Greeks, and the Franks had expelled the Longobards. It was therefore open to the conqueror to
bestow his new acquisition where he pleased; but, at all events, the claim of
the Greek Emperor was stronger than that of his vassal the Bishop of Rome. We
cannot wonder, then, when we read, that ambassadors from Constantinople came to
meet Pepin in the neighborhood of Pavia, and begged him to restore Ravenna and
the other towns of the exarchate to the Roman Emperor. “But they did not
succeed,” says the chronicler, “in moving the steadfast heart of the king; on
the contrary, he declared that he would by no means allow these towns to be
alienated from the rule of the Roman chair, and that nothing should turn him
from his resolution”. Accordingly, he despatched the
Abbot Fulrad, with
the plenipotentiary of King Haistulph, to receive
possession of the towns and strong places which the Lombard had agreed to
resign. The abbot was further instructed to take with him a deputation of the
most respectable inhabitants from these towns, and in their company to carry
the keys of their gates to Rome, and lay them in St. Peters grave, together
with a regular deed of gift to the Pope and his successors.
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE.
The independence of the holy see, as far as regarded the Greek Empire,
was thus secured, and a solid foundation laid for the temporal power of the
Popes, who may now be said to have taken their place for the first time among
the sovereigns of Europe.
The rising fortunes of the Roman pontiffs were still further favored by
a disputed succession to the Lombard throne. On the death of Haistulph, his brother Ratchis, who had formerly changed a crown for a
cowl, was desirous of returning to his previous dignity, and appears to have
been the popular candidate. Desiderius, Duke of Tuscia, Constable of Haistulph, obtained
the support of the Pope. In order to secure this valuable alliance, he had
promised “to comply with all the holy father’s wishes”, to deliver up other
towns in Italy besides those mentioned in Pepin’s deed of gift, and to make him
many other rich presents. “Upon this”, says the chronicle, “the Arch-shepherd
took counsel with the venerable Abbot Fulrad, and
sent his brothers, Diaconus Paulus and Primicerius Christopher, in company with Abbot Fulrad, to Desiderius, in Tuscia,
who immediately confirmed his former promises with a deed and a most fearful
oath”.
After this prudent precaution, it was agreed at Rome that the cause of
Desiderius should be supported, even by force of arms if necessary,
against Ratchis. “But
Almighty God ordered matters in such a manner that Desiderius, with the aid of
the Pope, ascended the throne without any further contest”. The promised
towns, Faventia (Faenza),
with the fortresses Tiberiacum, Cavellum, and the whole duchy of
Ferrara, were claimed, and, according to some accounts, received, by the papal
envoys; though the next Pope complains that Desiderius had not kept his
promises. Stephen II ended his eventful life on the 24th of April, AD 757.
With the exception of an unimportant expedition against the Saxons, in
which Pepin gained a victory on the river Lippe,
and again at Sithiu,
near Dülmen on
the Stever (in
Westphalia), nothing of importance, in a military point of view, appears to
have been undertaken before AD 760; when, according to some authors, Narbonne
was taken from the Saracens, who were now driven from all their possessions on
the Gallic side of the Pyrenees.
FRANKS MARCH AGAINST
AQUITANIANS.
In AD 760, began a long series of annual expeditions against Aquitaine,
a country which had asserted a degree of independence highly offensive to the
Franks. The Aquitanian princes, too, are supposed to have been peculiarly
odious to Pepin, as offshoots from the Merovingian stock. Waifar, the reigning duke, the
son of that Hunold who had retired from the world in
disgust after his defeat by the Franks, inherited the restless and haughty
spirit of his father, and was ready to renew the contest which Hunold had abandoned in despair. The ambitious desires of
Pepin, quickened by a personal dislike of Waifar, were seconded by a strong mutual antipathy
existing between his own subjects and the Aquitanians.
German blood did not enter largely into the composition of the population of
Aquitaine, and that small portion which did flow in their veins was supplied
by the Ostrogoths, a German tribe, indeed, but one which differed very widely from their Frankish kinsmen. The Aquitanians appear at this time to have possessed a degree
of civilization unknown to the Franks, whom they regarded as semi-barbarians;
while the Franks, in turn, despised the delicacy and refinement of their weaker
neighbors. Their mutual dislikes and jealousies were kept alive by a perpetual
border warfare, which was carried on (as formerly between England and her
neighbors on the north and west) by powerful individuals in either country, without
regard to the relations existing between their respective rulers. It was from
these causes that Pepin came to look upon the Aquitanians and their duke in the same light as the Welsh were regarded by our own Edward
I. The affected independence of Waifar,
and the continual inroads made by the Aquitanians into his dominions, exasperated his feelings in the highest degree; and he
evidently sought the quarrel which occupied him for the remainder of his life.
In AD 760, Pepin sent an embassy to Waifar, with demands which betrayed his hostile
intentions against that unfortunate prince. On this occasion, too, the Frankish
monarch came forward as a protector of the Church. He demanded of Waifar that he should give
up all the ecclesiastical property in his dominions which had been in any way
alienated from the Church; restore the immunities which the lands of the clergy
had formerly enjoyed; and cease for the future from sending into them his
officers and tax-gatherers. Furthermore, he demanded that Waifar should pay a weregeld “for all
the Goths whom he had lately put to death contrary to law”; and, lastly, that
he should deliver up all fugitives from the dominions of Pepin who had sought
refuge in Aquitaine.
Waifar had
thus the option given him of submitting to become a mere lieutenant of Pepin,
or of having the whole force of the Frankish empire employed for his
destruction. He chose the latter alternative, as every high-spirited prince
must have done under the circumstances; and the war began at once. “All this”,
says the chronicler, “Waifar refused
to do; and therefore Pepin collected an army from all quarters, although
unwillingly, and, as it were, under compulsion”. The Frankish army marched
through Troyes and Auxerre, and, crossing the Loire at the village of Masua, and passing through Berri
and Auvergne, devastated the greater part of Aquitaine with fire and
sword. Waifar, who
was not sufficiently prepared for the attack, made an insincere profession of
penitence which deceived no one; and, after taking the necessary oaths of
fidelity and giving hostages, was relieved from his unwelcome visitors. That
this was a mere marauding expedition, to which Waifar offered no serious resistance, is
proved by the fact that “Pepin returned back without having suffered the
slightest loss”.
In the following year Waifar,
who had formed an alliance with Humbert, Count of Bourges, and Blandin, Count of Auvergne,
considered himself strong enough to venture upon an inroad into the Frankish
territory; and, in company with these allies, he led his army, plundering and
burning, as far as Châlons on the Saône. Pepin’s rage at hearing that the Aquitanians had dared to take the initiative, and had ravaged a large portion of Neustria,
and even burned his own palace at Melciacum, was
further increased by the knowledge that some of his own counts were aiding the
invaders. Hastily collecting his troops, he took a terrible revenge, and showed
the unusual exasperation of his feelings by putting his prisoners to death, and
allowing a great number of men, women, and children to perish in the flames of
the conquered towns. As Waifar still
continued contumacious, a similar expedition was undertaken by the Franks in
the following year, and Bourges and Thouars were stormed and taken. Pepin,
according to the chronicles, invariably returned from these campaigns
victorious “by the aid of God”, or “under the guidance of Christ”, “laden with
booty, and without the slightest loss”.
At the return of spring, in AD 763, Pepin held the Campus Mains at
Nevers, at which it was resolved once more to carry fire and sword into the
devoted land of Aquitaine, the inhabitants of which had already lost almost
everything but their stubborn hatred of their Frankish oppressors. It is
curious, when we consider that this war was undertaken by Pepin on behalf of
the Church (which Waifar was accused of despoiling),
to read the account of the destructive march of the Franks. “After desolating
nearly the whole of the country about Limoges”, says the chronicler, “and
plundering many monasteries, he marched to Issandon (near Limoges), and laid waste a great part of Aquitaine, which was chiefly covered
with vineyards; for, in nearly the whole of Aquitania, the churches and
monasteries, the rich and the poor, cultivated the vine, but he destroyed
everything”. The campaign of this year is remarkable for the sudden defection
of Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria and nephew of Pepin, who,
during the march towards Aquitaine, suddenly withdrew with his troops under pretence of illness, with the firm resolve “never to see
his uncle’s face again”. When about twenty-one years of age, Tassilo had been compelled to swear fealty to Pepin at the
Campus Maius held
at Compiegne in AD 757. Since that period he had
been kept continually near his uncle’s person, as if the latter was not
satisfied with the sincerity of his subservience. The defection of Tassilo, at a time when the Frankish power was engaged in
this desperate and bitter contest with the Aquitanians,
caused great anxiety to Pepin; and though the march was continued as far
as Cahors, little of importance was effected.
The diet was held in the following year, AD 764, at
Worms, where it was discussed whether the war should be proceeded with or the
revolt of the Bavarians be first suppressed. It would appear, however, that
Pepin found it impossible to induce his vassals to march in either direction,
for we are told that he passed the whole year at home, and spent the winter at
his palace at Chiersy.
He endeavored, indeed, to plant a thorn in the side of Waifar by bestowing the lately conquered town
of Argenton and the province of Berri
on Remistan, the
uncle of Waifar, who
had voluntarily sworn allegiance to him. But this hope, too, failed; for Remistan was false to his
own treachery, and soon reconciled himself to his nephew, and took up the
national cause. To show his sincerity in this second change, Remistan devastated the
territory of Bourges and Limoges in so terrible a manner that “not a farmer
dared to till his fields or vineyards”.
PEPIN DEVASTATES AQUITAINE.
The effect of the perpetual and harassing inroads of the Aquitanians upon the Franks was such as Pepin most desired.
It exasperated them to such a degree that they were ready to make any sacrifice
to destroy their troublesome enemy. In the campus Maius, therefore, which Pepin held at Orleans in AD
766, he found his vassals fully prepared to second his designs, and determined,
at any cost, to finish the war. Considerable progress was made towards the
subjugation of Waifar’s territory
during this year, but still more in the two following; in the former of which
the city of Toulouse and the fortresses Scoraille, Turenne, and Peiruce were taken, and in the latter the
Frankish army pressed on as far as the Garonne, Perigueux, and Saintes.
Waifar and his
people were by this time utterly exhausted by their exertions and calamities,
and, being without the means of continuing the war, lay at the mercy of the
conquerors. Embittered by the opposition he had met with, Pepin acted with
unusual harshness. Taking his family with him to Saintes,
and leaving them there, “he turned his whole mind to the destruction of Waifar, and determined never to
rest till he had captured or killed the rebel”. Remistan was soon afterwards taken prisoner
and hung as a traitor. The mother, sister, and niece of Waifar fell into the hands
of the Franks, and were sent off into the interior of the kingdom. That unhappy
prince himself, deprived of every hope, and every consolation in disaster,
deserted by the great mass of the Gascons, and
hunted from hiding-place to hiding-place like a wild beast, met with the common
fate of unfortunate monarchs; he was betrayed and murdered by his own followers
in the forest of Edobold in
Perigord. The independence of Aquitaine fell with him, and the country was
subsequently governed by Frankish counts like the rest of Pepin’s empire.
The victor returned in triumph to his queen Bertrada (who was awaiting him at Saintes), rejoicing,
doubtless, in having at last attained the object of so many toilsome years. His
implacable and hated foe was no more; the stiff-necked Aquitanians were at his feet; his southern border was secure; and the whole empire was in
an unwonted state of peace. He had every reason to look forward with confidence
to an interval at least of quiet, which he might spend in domestic pleasures
and in the regulation of the internal affairs of the vast empire over which he
ruled.
But where he had looked for repose and safety an enemy awaited him more
terrible than any whom he had encountered in the field. A short time after he
arrived at Saintes, he was attacked by a
disease which is variously described as fever and dropsy. Convinced that his
case was beyond all human aid, he set out with his wife and children to Tours,
and, entering the church of St. Martin, earnestly prayed for the intercession
of that patron saint of the Frankish kings. From thence he proceeded to Paris,
and passed sometime in the monastery of St. Denis, invoking the aid of God
through his chosen servants. But when he saw that it was the will of heaven
that he should die, he provided for the future welfare of his subjects;
summoning the dukes and counts, the bishops and clergy of his Frankish
dominions, he divided the whole empire, with their concurrence, between his two
sons, Carl and Carloman. He died a few days after the
settlement of the succession, on the 24th of September, AD 768,
in the twenty-fifth year of his prosperous reign, and was buried by his sons,
with great pomp, in the church of St. Denis, at Paris.
CHARACTER OF PEPIN.
Pepin was described by Alcuin, in the following generation, as an
“energetic and honorable prince, distinguished alike by his victories and his
virtues”; and although such epithets were used, more especially in that age,
without sufficient discrimination, there is every reason in the present case to
adopt them in their full significance. In the field, indeed, he had fewer
difficulties to deal with than his warlike father. In all his military
undertakings the odds were greatly in his favor; and he had not the same
opportunities as Carl Martel of showing what he could effect by the mere force
of superior genius. Yet, whatever he was called upon to do, he did with energy
and success. He quickly brought the revolted German nations, the Bavarians and
Swabians, to the obedience to which the hammering of his predecessor had
reduced them; and he drove back the restless Saxons to their wild retreats.
Twice he led an army across the Alps against a brave and active enemy, and
twice returned victorious, after saving the distant city of Rome from imminent
destruction and securing the independence of the Pope.
As a civil ruler he showed himself temperate and wise. Though greatly
superior in every respect to his brother, he took no unfair advantage of him,
but lived and acted with him in uninterrupted harmony. Though his ambition
induced him to assume the name of king, he did so without haste or rashness, at
a time and under circumstances in which the change of dynasty was likely to
cause the least amount of ill-feeling or disturbance.
In his relations to the Church he displayed both reverence and
self-respect. From conviction as well as policy, he was a staunch supporter of
Christianity and the Roman Church: but he was no weak fanatic; he cherished and
advanced the clergy, and availed himself of their superior learning in the
conduct of his affairs; but he was by no means inclined to give way to
immoderate pretensions on their part. He always remained their master, though a
kind and considerate one; nor did he scruple to make use of their overflowing
coffers for the general purposes of the State.
Of his private life we know scarcely anything at all; but we have no
reason to suppose that it was inconsistent with that respect for religion, that
love of order, justice, and moderation which he generally manifested in his
public acts. In his last campaigns against Waifar and the Aquitanians alone does he seem, to have been betrayed into a cruel and vindictive line of
conduct; and from them, as we have seen, he received the greatest provocation.
With such high qualities, important transactions, and glorious deeds,
connected with his name, we might wonder that the fame of Pepin is not greater,
did we not know the diminishing force of unfavorable contrast. Unfortunately,
for his renown at least, he had a father and a son still greater than himself.
Such a man would have risen like an alp from the level plain of ordinary kings:
as it is, he forms but a link in a long chain of eminences, of which he is not
the highest; and thus it has come to pass that the tomb of one who ruled a
mighty empire for twenty-five years with invariable success, who founded a new
dynasty of kings, and established the Popes on their earthly throne, is
inscribed with the name of his still more glorious successor; and all his high
qualities and glorious deeds appear to be forgotten in the fact that he was “Pater Caroli Magni!”
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