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THE Gauls, (1) who impatiently supported the Roman yoke,
received a memorable lesson from one of the lieutenants of
Vespasian, whose weighty sense has been refined and
expressed by the genius of Tacitus. (2) "The protection of the
republic has delivered Gaul from internal discord and
foreign invasions. By the loss of national independence you
have acquired the name and privileges of Roman citizens. You
enjoy, in common with ourselves, the permanent benefits of
civil government and your remote situation is less exposed
to the accidental mischiefs of tyranny. Instead of
exercising the rights of conquest, we have been contented to
impose such tributes as are requisite for your own
preservation. Peace cannot be secured without armies, and
armies must be supported at the expense of the people. It is
for your sake, not for our own, that we guard the barrier of
the Rhine against the ferocious Germans, who have so often
attempted, and who will always desire, to exchange the
solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and
fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome would be fatal to the
provinces, and you would be buried in the ruins of that
mighty fabric which has been raised by the valour and wisdom
of eight hundred years. Your imaginary freedom would be
insulted and oppressed by a savage master, and the expulsion
of the Romans would be succeeded by the eternal hostilities
of the barbarian conquerors." (3) This salutary advice was
accepted, and this strange prediction was accomplished. In
the space of four hundred years the hardy Gauls, who had
encountered the arms of Caesar, were imperceptibly melted
into the general mass of citizens and subjects: the Western
empire was dissolved; and the Germans who had passed the
Rhine fiercely contended for the possession of Gaul, and
excited the contempt or abhorrence of its peaceful and
polished inhabitants. With that conscious pride which the
pre-eminence of knowledge and luxury seldom fails to
inspire, they derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the
North; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious
appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to
the sight and to the smell. The liberal studies were still
cultivated in the schools of Autun and Bordeaux, and the
language of Cicero and Virgil was familiar to the Gallic
youth. Their ears were astonished by the harsh and unknown
sounds of the Germanic dialect, and they ingeniously
lamented that the trembling muses fled from the harmony of a
Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were endowed with all the
advantages of art and nature, but, as they wanted courage to
defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to
flatter, the victorious barbarians by whose clemency they
held their precarious fortunes and their lives. (4)
As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the Western empire, he
sought the friendship of the most powerful of the
barbarians. The new sovereign of Italy resigned to Euric,
king of the Visigoths, all the Roman conquests beyond the
Alps, as far as the Rhine and the Ocean; (5) and the senate
might confirm this liberal gift with some ostentation of
power, and without any real loss of revenue or dominion. The
lawful pretensions of Euric were justified by ambition and
success, and the Gothic nation might aspire under his
command to the monarchy of Spain and Gaul. Arles and
Marseilles surrendered to his arms: he oppressed the freedom
of Auvergne, and the bishop condescended to purchase his
recall from exile by a tribute of just but reluctant praise.
Sidonius waited before the gates of the palace among a crowd
of ambassadors and suppliants, and their various business at
the court of Bordeaux attested the power and the renown of
the king of the Visigoths. The Heruli of the distant ocean,
who painted their naked bodies with its caerulean colour,
implored his protection; and the Saxons respected the
maritime provinces of a prince who was destitute of any
naval force. The tall Burgundians submitted to his
authority; nor did he restore the captive Franks till he had
imposed on that fierce nation the terms of an unequal peace.
The Vandals of Africa cultivated his useful friendship, and
the Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful
aid against the oppression of the neighbouring Huns. The
North (such are the lofty strains of the poet) was agitated
or appeased by the nod of Euric, the great king of Persia
consulted the oracle of the West, and the aged god of the
Tiber was protected by the swelling genius of the Garonne. (6)
The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents; and
France may ascribe her greatness to the premature death of
the Gothic king at a time when his son Alaric was a helpless
infant, and his adversary Clovis (7) an ambitious and valiant
youth.
While Childeric, the father of Clovis, lived an exile in
Germany, he was hospitably entertained by the queen as well
as by the king of the Thuringians. After his restoration
Bafina escaped from her husband's bed to the arms of her
lover, freely declaring that, if she had known a man wiser,
stronger, or more beautiful than Childeric, that man should
have been the object of her preference. (8) Clovis was the
offspring of this voluntary union, and when he was no more
than fifteen years of age he succeeded, by his father's
death, to the command of the Salian tribe. The narrow limits
of his kingdom (9) were confined to the island of the
Batavians, with the ancient dioceses of Tournay and Arras;
(10) and at the baptism of Clovis the number of his warriors
could not exceed five thousand. The kindred tribes of the
Franks who had seated themselves along the Belgic rivers,
the Scheldt, the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, were
governed by their independent kings of the Merovingian race
the equals, the allies, and sometimes the enemies, of the
Salic prince. But the Germans, who obeyed in peace the
hereditary jurisdiction of their chiefs, were free to follow
the standard of a popular and victorious general; and the
superior merit of Clovis attracted the respect and
allegiance of the national confederacy. When he first took
the field, he had neither gold and silver in his coffers,
nor wine and corn in his magazines; (11) but he imitated the
example of Caesar, who in the same country had acquired
wealth by the sword, and purchased soldiers with the fruits
of conquest. After each successful battle or expedition the
spoils were accumulated in one common mass; every warrior
received his proportionable share, and the royal prerogative
submitted to the equal regulations of military law. The
untamed spirit of the barbarians was taught to acknowledge
the advantages of regular discipline. (12) At the annual
review of the month of March their arms were diligently
inspected, and when they traversed a peaceful territory they
were prohibited from touching a blade of grass. The justice
of Clovis was inexorable, and his careless or disobedient
soldiers were punished with instant death. It would be
superfluous to praise the valour of a Frank, but the valour
of Clovis was directed by cool and consummate prudence. (13)
In all his transactions with mankind he calculated the
weight of interest, of passion, and of opinion; and his
measures were sometimes adapted to the sanguinary manners of
the Germans, and sometimes moderated by the milder genius of
Rome and Christianity. He was intercepted in the career of
victory, since he died in the forty-fifth year of his age:
but he had already accomplished, in a reign of thirty years,
the establishment of the French monarchy in Gaul.
The first exploit of Clovis was the defeat of Syagrius, the
son of Aegidius, and the public quarrel might on this
occasion be inflamed by private resentment. The glory of the
father still insulted the Merovingian race; the power of the
son might excite the jealous ambition of the king of the
Franks. Syagrius inherited, as a patrimonial estate, the
city and diocese of Soissons: the desolate remnant of the
second Belgic, Rheims and Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would
naturally submit to the count or patrician; (14) and after the
dissolution of the Western empire he might reign with the
title, or at least with the authority, of king of the
Romans. (15) As a Roman, he had been educated in the liberal
studies of rhetoric and jurisprudence; but he was engaged by
accident and policy in the familiar use of the Germanic
idiom. The independent barbarians resorted to the tribunal
of a stranger who possessed the singular talent of
explaining, in their native tongue, the dictates of reason
and equity. The diligence and affability of their judge
rendered him popular, the impartial wisdom of his decrees
obtained their voluntary obedience, and the reign of
Syagrius over the Franks and Burgundians seemed to revive
the original institution of civil society. (16) In the midst
of these peaceful occupations Syagrius received, and boldly
accepted, the hostile defiance of Clovis, who challenged his
rival in the spirit, and almost in the language of chivalry,
to appoint the day and the field (17) of battle. In the time
of Caesar, Soissons would have poured forth a body of fifty
thousand horse; and such an army might have been plentifully
supplied with shields, cuirasses, and military engines from
the three arsenals or manufactures of the city. (18) But the
courage and numbers of the Gallic youth were long since
exhausted, and the loose bands of volunteers or mercenaries
who marched under the standard of Syagrius were incapable of
contending with the national valour of the Franks. It would
be ungenerous, without some more accurate knowledge of his
strength and resources, to condemn the rapid flight of
Syagrius, who escaped after the loss of a battle to the
distant court of Toulouse. The feeble minority of Alaric
could not assist or protect an unfortunate fugitive; the
pusillanimous (19) Goths were intimidated by the menaces of
Clovis: and the Roman king, after a short confinement, was
delivered into the hands of the executioner. The Belgic
cities surrendered to the king of the Franks, and his
dominions were enlarged towards the east by the ample
diocese of Tongres, (20) which Clovis subdued in the tenth
year of his reign.
The name of the Alemanni has been absurdly derived from
their imaginary settlement on the banks of the Leman lake.
(21) That fortunate district, from the lake to Avenche and
Mount Jura, was occupied by the Burgundians. (22) The northern
parts of Helvetia had indeed been subdued by the ferocious
Alemanni, who destroyed with their own hands the fruits of
their conquest. A province, improved and adorned by the arts
of Rome, was again reduced to a savage wilderness, and some
vestige of the stately Vindonissa may still be discovered in
the fertile and populous valley of the Aar. (23) From the
source of the Rhine to its conflux with the Main and the
Moselle, the formidable swarms of the Alemanni commanded
either side of the river by the right of ancient possession
or recent victory. They had spread themselves into Gaul over
the modern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine; and their bold
invasion of the kingdom of Cologne summoned the Salic prince
to the defence of his Ripuarian allies. Clovis encountered
the invaders of Gaul in the plain of Tolbiac, about
twenty-four miles from Cologne, and the two fiercest nations
of Germany were mutually animated by the memory of past
exploits and the prospect of future greatness. The Franks
after an obstinate struggle gave way, and the Alemanni,
raising a shout of victory, impetuously pressed their
retreat. But the battle was restored by the valour, the
conduct, and perhaps by the piety, of Clovis; and the event
of the bloody day decided for ever the alternative of empire
or servitude. The last king of the Alemanni was slain in the
field, and his people were slaughtered and pursued till they
threw down their arms and yielded to the mercy of the
conqueror. Without discipline it was impossible for them to
rally: they had contemptuously demolished the walls and
fortifications which might have protected their distress;
and they a were followed into the heart of their forests by
an enemy not less active or intrepid than themselves. The
great Theodoric congratulated the victory of Clovis, whose
sister Albofleda the king of Italy had lately married; but
he mildly interceded with his brother in favour of the
suppliants and fugitives who had implored his protection.
The Gallic territories which were possessed by the Alemanni
became the prize of their conqueror; and the haughty nation,
invincible or rebellious to the arms of Rome, acknowledged
the sovereignty of the Merovingian kings, who graciously
permitted them to enjoy their peculiar manners and
institutions under the government of official, and, at
length, of hereditary dukes. After the conquest of the
Western provinces, the Franks alone maintained their ancient
habitations beyond the Rhine. They gradually subdued and
civilised the exhausted countries as far as the Elbe and the
mountains of Bohemia, and the peace of Europe was secured by
the obedience of Germany. (24)
Till the thirtieth year of his age Clovis continued to
worship the gods of his ancestors. (25) His disbelief, or
rather disregard of Christianity, might encourage him to
pillage with less remorse the churches of an hostile
territory: but his subjects of Gaul enjoyed the free
exercise of religious worship, and the bishops entertained a
more favourable hope of the idolater than of the heretics.
The Merovingian prince had contracted a fortunate alliance
with the fair Clotilda, the niece of the king of Burgundy,
who in the midst of an Arian court was educated in the
profession of the catholic faith. It was her interest as
well as her duty to achieve the conversion (26) of a Pagan
husband; and Clovis insensibly listened to the voice of love
and religion. He consented (perhaps such terms had been
previously stipulated) to the baptism of his eldest on; and
though the sudden death of the infant excited some
superstitious fears, he was persuaded a second time to
repeat the dangerous experiment. In the distress of the
battle of Tolbiac, Clovis loudly invoked the God of Clotilda
and the Christians; and victory disposed him to hear with
respectful gratitude the eloquent (27) Remigius, (28) bishop of
Rheims, who forcibly displayed the temporal and spiritual
advantages of his conversion. The king declared himself
satisfied of the truth of the catholic faith and the
political reasons which might have suspended his public
profession were removed by the devout or loyal acclamations
of the Franks, who showed themselves alike prepared to
follow their heroic leader to the field of battle or to the
baptismal font. The important ceremony was performed in the
cathedral of Rheims with every circumstance of magnificence
and solemnity hat could impress an awful sense of religion
on he minds of its rude proselytes. (29) The new Constantine
was immediately baptised with three thousand of his warlike
subjects, and their example was imitated by the remainder of
the gentle barbarians, who, in obedience to the victorious
prelate, adored the cross which they had burnt, and burnt
the idols which they had formerly adored. (30) The mind of
Clovis was susceptible of transient fervour: he was
exasperated by the pathetic tale of the passion and death of
Christ; and instead of weighing the salutary consequences of
that mysterious sacrifice, he exclaimed with indiscreet
fury, "Had I been present at the head of my valiant Franks,
I would have revenged his injuries." (31) But the savage
conqueror of Gaul was incapable of examining the proofs of a
religion which depends on the laborious investigation of
historic evidence and speculative theology. He was still
more incapable of feeling the mild influence of the Gospel,
which persuades and purifies the heart of a genuine convert.
His ambitious reign was a perpetual violation of moral and
Christian duties: his hands were stained with blood in peace
as well as in war; and, as soon as Clovis had dismissed a
synod of the Gallician church, he calmly assassinated all
the princes of the Merovingian race. (32) Yet the king of the
Franks might sincerely worship the Christian God as a being
more excellent and powerful than his national deities; and
the signal deliverance and victory of Tolbiac encouraged
Clovis to confide in the future protection of the Lord of
Hosts. Martin, the most popular of the saints, had filled
the Western world with the fame of those miracles which were
incessantly performed at his holy sepulchre of Tours. His
visible or invisible aid promoted the cause of a liberal and
orthodox prince; and the profane remark of Clovis himself,
that St. Martin was an expensive friend, (33) need not be
interpreted as the symptom of any permanent or rational
scepticism. But earth as well as heaven rejoiced in the
conversion of the Franks. On the memorable day when Clovis
ascended from the baptismal font, he alone in the Christian
world deserved the name and prerogatives of a catholic king.
The emperor Anastasius entertained some dangerous errors
concerning the nature of the divine incarnation; and the
barbarians of Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul were involved
in the Arian heresy. The eldest, or rather the only son of
the church, was acknowledged by the clergy as their lawful
sovereign or glorious deliverer; and the arms of Clovis were
strenuously supported by the zeal and favour of the catholic
faction. (34)
Under the Roman empire the wealth and jurisdiction of the
bishops, their sacred character and perpetual office, their
numerous dependents, popular eloquence, and provincial
assemblies had rendered them always respectable, and
sometimes dangerous. Their influence was augmented with the
progress of superstition; and the establishment of the
French monarchy may, in some degree, be ascribed to the firm
alliance of an hundred prelates, who reigned in the
discontented or independent cities of Gaul. The slight
foundations of the Armorican republic had been repeatedly
shaken or overthrown; but the same people still guarded
their domestic freedom; asserted the dignity of the Roman
name; and bravely resisted the predatory inroads and regular
attacks of Clovis, who laboured to extend his conquests from
the Seine to the Loire. Their successful opposition
introduced an equal and honourable union. The Franks
esteemed the valour of the Armoricans; (35) and the Armoricans
were reconciled by the religion of the Franks. The military
force which had been stationed for the defence of Gaul
consisted of one hundred different bands of cavalry or
infantry; and these troops, while they assumed the title and
privileges of Roman soldiers, were renewed by an incessant
supply of the barbarian youth. The extreme fortifications
and scattered fragments of the empire were still defended by
their hopeless courage. But their retreat was intercepted,
and their communication was impracticable: they were
abandoned by the Greek princes of Constantinople, and they
piously disclaimed all connection with the Arian usurpers of
Gaul. They accepted, without shame or reluctance, the
generous capitulation which was proposed by a catholic hero;
and the spurious or legitimate progeny of the Roman legions
was distinguished in the succeeding age by their arms, their
ensigns, and their peculiar dress and institutions. But the
national strength was increased by these powerful and
voluntary accessions; and the neighbouring kingdoms dreaded
the numbers as well as the spirit of the Franks. The
reduction of the northern provinces of Gaul, instead of
being decided by the chance of a single battle, appears to
have been slowly effected by the gradual operation of war
and treaty; and Clovis acquired each object of his ambition
by such efforts or such concessions as were adequate to its
real value. His savage character and the virtues of Henry
IV. suggest the most opposite ideas of human nature; yet
some resemblance may be found in the situation of two
princes who conquered France by their valour, their policy,
and the merits of a seasonable conversion. (36)
The kingdom of the Burgundians, which was defined by the
course of two Gallic rivers, the Saone and the Rhone,
extended from the forest of Vosges to the Alps and the sea
of Marseilles. (37) The sceptre was in the hands of Gundobald
That valiant and ambitious prince had reduced the number of
royal candidates by the death of two brothers, one of whom
was the father of Clotilda; (38) but his imperfect prudence
still permitted Godegesil, the youngest of his brothers to
possess the dependent principality of Geneva. The Arian
monarch was justly alarmed by the satisfaction and the hopes
which seemed to animate his clergy and people after the
conversion of Clovis; and Gundobald convened at Lyons an
assembly of his bishops, to reconcile, if it were possible,
their religious and political discontents. A vain conference
was agitated between the two factions. The Arians upbraided
the catholics with the worship of three Gods: the catholics
defended their cause by theological distinctions; and the
usual arguments, objections, and replies were reverberated
with obstinate clamour, till the king revealed his secret
apprehensions by an abrupt but decisive question, which he
addressed to the orthodox bishops: "If you truly profess the
Christian religion, why do you not restrain the king of the
Franks? He has declared war against me, and forms alliances
with my enemies for my destruction. A sanguinary and
covetous mind is not the symptom of a sincere conversion:
let him show his faith by his works." The answer of Avitus,
bishop of Vienne, who spoke in the name of his brethren, was
delivered with the voice and countenance of an angel. "We
are ignorant of the motives and intentions of the king of
the Franks: but we are taught by Scripture that the kingdoms
which abandon the divine laws are frequently subverted; and
that enemies will arise on every side against those who have
made God their enemy. Return, with thy people, to the law of
God, and he will give peace and security to thy dominions."
The king of Burgundy, who was not prepared to accept the
condition which the catholics considered as essential to the
treaty, delayed and dismissed the ecclesiastical conference,
after reproaching his bishops, that Clovis, their friend and
proselyte, had privately tempted the allegiance of his
brother. (39)
The allegiance of his brother was already seduced; and the
obedience of Godegesil, who joined the royal standard with
the troops of Geneva, more effectually promoted the success
of the conspiracy. While the Franks and Burgundians
contended with equal valour, his seasonable desertion
decided the event of the battle; and as Gundobald was
faintly supported by the disaffected Gauls, he yielded to
the arms of Clovis, and hastily retreated from the field,
which appears to have been situate between Langres and
Dijon. He distrusted the strength of Dijon, a quadrangular
fortress, encompassed by two rivers and by a wall thirty
feet high and fifteen thick, with four gates and
thirty-three towers: (40) he abandoned to the pursuit of
Clovis the important cities of Lyons and Vienne, and
Gundobald still fled with precipitation till he had reached
Avignon, at the distance of two hundred and fifty miles from
the field of battle. A long siege and an artful negotiation
admonished the king of the Franks of the danger and
difficulty of his enterprise. He imposed a tribute on the
Burgundian prince, compelled him to pardon and reward his
brother's treachery, and proudly returned to his own
dominions with the spoils and captives of the southern
provinces. This splendid triumph was soon clouded by the
intelligence that Gundobald had violated his recent
obligations, and that the unfortunate Godegesil, who was
left at Vienne with a garrison of five thousand Franks, (41)
had been besieged, surprised, and massacred by his inhuman
brother. Such an outrage might have exasperated the patience
of the most peaceful sovereign; yet the conqueror of Gaul
dissembled the injury, released the tribute, and accepted
the alliance and military service of the king of Burgundy.
Clovis no longer possessed those advantages which had
assured the success of the preceding war; and his rival,
instructed by adversity, had found new resources in the
affections of his people. The Gauls or Romans applauded the
mild and impartial laws of Gundobald, which almost raised
them to the same level with their conquerors. The bishops
were reconciled and flattered by the hopes which he artfully
suggested of his approaching conversion; and though he
eluded their accomplishment to the last moment of his life,
his moderation secured the peace and suspended the ruin of
the kingdom of Burgundy. (42)
I am impatient to pursue the final ruin of that kingdom,
which was accomplished under the reign of Sigismond, the son
of Gundobald. The catholic Sigismond has acquired the
honours of a saint and martyr; (43) but the hands of the royal
saint were stained with the blood of his innocent son, whom
he inhumanly sacrificed to the pride and resentment of a
stepmother. He soon discovered his error, and bewailed the
irreparable loss. While Sigismond embraced the corpse of the
unfortunate youth, he received a severe admonition from one
of his attendants: "It is not his situation, O king! it is
thine which deserves pity and lamentation." The reproaches
of a guilty conscience were alleviated, however by his
liberal donations to the monastery of Agaunum, or St.
Maurice, in Vallais which he himself had founded in honour
of the imaginary martyrs of the Thebaean legion. (44) A full
chorus of perpetual psalmody was instituted by the pious
king; he assiduously practised the austere devotion of the
monks; and it was his humble prayer that Heaven would
inflict in this world the punishment of his sins. His prayer
was heard: the avengers were at hand; and the provinces of
Burgundy were overwhelmed by an army of victorious Franks.
After the event of an unsuccessful battle, Sigismond, who
wished to protract his life that he might prolong his
penance, concealed himself in the desert in a religious
habit till he was discovered and betrayed by his subjects,
who solicited the favour of their new masters. The captive
monarch, with his wife and two children, was transported to
Orleans, and buried alive in a deep well by the stern
command of the sons of Clovis, whose cruelty might derive
some excuse from the maxims and examples of their barbarous
age. Their ambition, which urged them to achieve the
conquest of Burgundy, was inflamed or disguised by filial
piety: and Clotilda, whose sanctity did not consist in the
forgiveness of injuries, pressed them to revenge her
father's death on the family of his assassin. The rebellious
Burgundians, for they attempted to break their chains, were
still permitted to enjoy their national laws under the
obligation of tribute and military service; and the
Merovingian princes peaceably reigned over a kingdom whose
glory and greatness had been first overthrown by the arms of
Clovis. (45)
The first victory of Clovis had insulted the honour of the
Goths. They viewed his rapid progress with jealousy and
terror; and the youthful fame of Alaric was oppressed by the
more potent genius of his rival. Some disputes inevitably
arose on the edge of their contiguous dominions; and after
the delays of fruitless negotiation a personal interview of
the two kings was proposed and accepted. This conference of
Clovis and Alaric was held in a small island of the Laire,
near Amboise. They embraced, familiarly conversed, and
feasted together and separated with the warmest professions
of peace and brotherly love. But their apparent confidence
concealed a dark suspicion of hostile and treacherous
designs; and their mutual complaints solicited, eluded, and
disclaimed a final arbitration. At Paris, which he already
considered as his royal seat, Clovis declared to an assembly
of the princes and warriors the pretence and the motive of a
Gothic war. " It grieves me to see that the Arians still
possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let us march against
them with the aid of God; and, having vanquished the
heretics, we will possess and divide their fertile
provinces." (46) The Franks, who were inspired by hereditary
valour and recent zeal, applauded the generous design of
their monarch; expressed their resolution to conquer or die,
since death and conquest would be equally profitable; and
solemnly protested that they would never shave their beards
till victory should absolve them from that inconvenient vow.
The enterprise was promoted by the public or private
exhortations of Clotilda. She reminded her husband how
effectually some pious foundation would propitiate the Deity
and his servants: and the Christian hero, darting his
battleaxe with a skilful and nervous hand, "There (said he),
on that spot where my 'Francisca' (47) shall fall, will I
erect a church in honour of the holy apostles." This
ostentatious piety confirmed and justified the attachment of
the catholics, with whom he secretly corresponded; and their
devout wishes were gradually ripened into a formidable
conspiracy. The people of Aquitain was alarmed by the
indiscreet reproaches of their Gothic tyrants, who justly
accused them of preferring the dominion of the Franks; and
their zealous adherent Quintianus, bishop of Rodez, (48)
preached more forcibly in his exile than in his diocese. To
resist these foreign and domestic enemies, who were
fortified by the alliance of the Burgundians, Alaric
collected his troops, far more numerous than the military
powers of Clovis. The Visigoths resumed the exercise of
arms, which they had neglected in a long and luxurious
peace; (49) a select band of valiant and robust slaves
attended their masters to the field; (50) and the cities of
Gaul were compelled to furnish their doubtful and reluctant
aid. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who reigned in
Italy, had laboured to maintain the tranquillity of Gaul;
and he assumed, or affected, for that purpose the impartial
character of a mediator. But the sagacious monarch dreaded
the rising empire of Clovis, and he was firmly engaged to
support the national and religious cause of the Goths.
The accidental or artificial prodigies which adorned the
expedition of Clovis were accepted, by a superstitious age,
as the manifest declaration of the Divine favour. He marched
from Paris, and as he proceeded with decent reverence
through the holy diocese of Tours, his anxiety tempted him
to consult the shrine of St Martin, the sanctuary, and the
oracle of Gaul. His messengers were instructed to remark the
words of the Psalm which should happen to be chanted at the
precise moment when they entered the church. Those words
most fortunately expressed the valour and victory of the
champions of Heaven, and the application was easily
transferred to the new Joshua, the new Gideon who went forth
to battle against the enemies of the Lord. (51) Orleans
secured to the Franks a bridge on the Loire; but, at the
distance of forty miles from Poitiers, their progress was
intercepted by an extraordinary swell of the river Vigenna
or Vienne; and the opposite banks were covered by the
encampment of the Visigoths. Delay must be always dangerous
to barbarians, who consume the country through which they
march; and had Clovis possessed leisure and materials, it
might have been impracticable to construct a bridge, or to
force a passage, in the face of a superior enemy. But the
affectionate peasants, who were impatient to welcome their
deliverer, could easily betray some unknown or unguarded
ford: the merit of the discovery was enhanced by the useful
interposition of fraud or fiction; and a white hart, of
singular size and beauty, appeared to guide and animate the
march of the catholic army. The counsels of the Visigoths
were irresolute and distracted. A crowd of impatient
warriors, presumptuous in their strength, and disdaining to
fly before the robbers of Germany, excited Alaric to assert
in arms the name and blood of the conqueror of Rome. The
advice of the graver chieftains pressed him to elude the
first ardour of the Franks; and to expect, in the southern
provinces of Gaul, the veteran and victorious Ostrogoths,
whom the king of Italy had already sent to his assistance.
The decisive moments were wasted in idle deliberation; the
Goths too hastily abandoned, perhaps, an advantageous post;
and the opportunity of a secure retreat was lost by their
slow and disorderly motions. After Clovis had passed the
ford, as it is still named, of the Hart, he advanced with
bold and hasty steps to prevent the escape of the enemy. His
nocturnal march was directed by a flaming meteor suspended
in the air above the cathedral of Poitiers; and this signal,
which might be previously concerted with the orthodox
successor of St. Hilary, was compared to the column of fire
that guided the Israelites in the desert. At the third hour
of the day, about ten miles beyond Poitiers, Clovis
overtook, and instantly attacked, the Gothic army, whose
defeat was already prepared by terror and confusion. Yet
they rallied in their extreme distress, and the martial
youths, who had clamorously demanded the battle, refused to
survive the ignominy of flight. The two kings encountered
each other in single combat Alaric fell by the hand of his
rival; and the victorious Frank was saved, by the goodness
of his cuirass and the vigour of his horse, from the spears
of two desperate Goths, who furiously rode against him to
revenge the death of their sovereign. The vague expression
of a mountain of the slain serves to indicate a cruel,
though indefinite, slaughter; but Gregory has carefully
observed that his valiant countryman Apollinaris, the son of
Sidonius, lost his life at the head of the nobles of
Auvergne. Perhaps these suspected catholics had been
maliciously exposed to the blind assault of the enemy; and
perhaps the influence of religion was superseded by personal
attachment or military honour. (52)
Such is the empire of Fortune (if we may still disguise our
ignorance under that popular name), that it is almost
equally difficult to foresee the events of war, or to
explain their various consequences. A bloody and complete
victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of
the field; and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes
been sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of
ages. The decisive battle of Poitiers was followed by the
conquest of Aquitain. Alaric had left behind him an infant
son, a bastard competitor, factious nobles and a disloyal
people and the remaining forces of the Goths were oppressed
by the general consternation, or opposed to each other in
civil discord The victorious king of the Franks proceeded
without delay to the siege of Angouleme. At the sound of his
trumpets the walls of the city imitated the example of
Jericho, and instantly fell to the ground; a splendid
miracle, which may be reduced to the supposition that some
clerical engineers had secretly undermined the foundations
of the rampart. (53) At Bordeaux, which had submitted without
resistance, Clovis established his winter quarters and his
prudent economy transported from Toulouse the royal
treasures, which were deposited in the capital of the
monarchy. The conqueror penetrated as far as the confines of
Spain; (54) restored the honours of the catholic church; fixed
in Aquitain a colony of Franks (55) and delegated to his
lieutenants the easy task of subduing or extirpating the
nation of the Visigoths. But the Visigoths were protected by
the wise and powerful monarch of Italy. While the balance
was still equal, Theodoric had perhaps delayed the march of
the Ostrogoths; but their strenuous efforts successfully
resisted the ambition of Clovis; and the army of the Franks,
and their Burgundian allies, was compelled to raise the
siege of Arles, with the loss, as it is said, of thirty
thousand men. These vicissitudes inclined the fierce spirit
of Clovis to acquiesce in an advantageous treaty of peace.
The Visigoths were suffered to retain the possession of
Septimania, a narrow tract of seacoast, from the Rhone to
the Pyrenees; but the ample province of Aquitain, from those
mountains to the Loire, was indissolubly united to the
kingdom of France. (56)
After the success of the Gothic war, Clovis accepted the
honours of the Roman consulship. The emperor Anastasius
ambitiously bestowed on the most powerful rival of Theodoric
the title and ensigns of that eminent dignity; yet, from
some unknown cause, the name of Clovis has not been
inscribed in the 'Fasti' either of the East or West. (57) On
the solemn day, the monarch of Gaul, placing a diadem on his
head, was invested, in the church of St. Martin, with a
purple tunic and mantle. From thence he proceeded on
horseback to the cathedral of Tours; and, as he passed
through the streets, profusely scattered, with his own hand,
a donative of gold and silver to the joyful multitude, who
incessantly repeated their acclamations of Consul and
Augustus. The actual or legal authority of Clovis could not
receive any new accessions from the consular dignity. It was
a name, a shadow, an empty pageant; and if the conqueror had
been instructed to claim the ancient prerogatives of that
high office, they must have expired with the period of its
annual duration. But the Romans were disposed to revere, in
the person of their master, that antique title which the
emperors condescended to assume: the barbarian himself
seemed to contract a sacred obligation to respect the
majesty of the republic; and the successors of Theodosius,
by soliciting his friendship, tacitly forgave, and almost
ratified, the usurpation of Gaul.
Twenty-five years after the death of Clovis this important
concession was more formally declared in a treaty between
his sons and the emperor Justinian. The Ostrogoths of Italy,
unable to defend their distant acquisitions, had resigned to
the Franks the cities of Arles and Marseilles: of Arles,
still adorned with the seat of a Praetorian praefect, and of
Marseilles, enriched by the advantages of trade and
navigation. (58) This transaction was confirmed by the
Imperial authority; and Justinian, generously yielding to
the Franks the sovereignty of the countries beyond the Alps,
which they already possessed, absolved the provincials from
their allegiance; and established on a more lawful, though
not more solid, foundation, the throne of the Merovingians.
(59) From that era they enjoyed the right of celebrating at
Arles the games of the circus; and by a singular privilege,
which was denied even to the Persian monarch, the gold coin,
impressed with their name and image, obtained a legal
currency in the empire. (60) A Greek historian of that age has
praised the private and public virtues of the Franks, with a
partial enthusiasm which cannot be sufficiently justified by
their domestic annals. (61) He celebrates their politeness and
urbanity, their regular government, and orthodox religion;
and boldly asserts that these barbarians could be
distinguished only by their dress and language from the
subjects of Rome. Perhaps the Franks already displayed the
social disposition, and lively graces, which, in every age,
have disguised their vices, and sometimes concealed their
intrinsic merit. Perhaps Agathias, and the Greeks, were
dazzled by the rapid progress of their arms, and the
splendour of their empire. Since the conquest of Burgundy,
Gaul, except the Gothic province of Septimania, was subject,
in its whole extent, to the sons of Clovis. They had
extinguished the German kingdom of Thuringia, and their
vague dominion penetrated beyond the Rhine, into the heart
of their native forests. The Alemanni and Bavarians, who had
occupied the Roman provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum, to the
south of the Danube, confessed themselves the humble vassals
of the Franks; and the feeble barrier of the Alps was
incapable of resisting their ambition. When the last
survivor of the sons of Clovis united the inheritance and
conquests of the Merovingians, his kingdom extended far
beyond the limits of modern France. Yet modern France, such
has been the progress of arts and policy, far surpasses, in
wealth, populousness, and power, the spacious but savage
realms of Clotaire or Dagobert. (62)
The Franks, or French, are the only people of Europe who can
deduce a perpetual succession from the conquerors of the
Western empire. But their conquest of Gaul was followed by
ten centuries of anarchy and ignorance. On the revival of
learning, the students who had been formed in the schools of
Athens and Rome disdained their barbarian ancestors; and a
long period elapsed before patient labour could provide the
requisite materials to satisfy, or rather to excite, the
curiosity of more enlightened times. (63) At length the eye of
criticism and philosophy was directed to the antiquities of
France but even philosophers have been tainted by the
contagion of prejudice and passion. The most extreme and
exclusive systems, of the personal servitude of the Gauls,
or of their voluntary and equal alliance with the Franks,
have been rashly conceived, and obstinately defended; and
the intemperate disputants have accused each other of
conspiring against the prerogative of the crown, the dignity
of the nobles, or the freedom of the people. Yet the sharp
conflict has usefully exercised the adverse powers of
learning and genius; and each antagonist, alternately
vanquished and victorious, has extirpated some ancient
errors, and established some interesting truths. An
impartial stranger, instructed by their discoveries, their
disputes, and even their faults, may describe, from the same
original materials, the state of the Roman provincials,
after Gaul had submitted to the arms and laws of the
Merovingian kings. (64)
The rudest, or the most servile, condition of human society,
is regulated however by some fixed and general rules. When
Tacitus surveyed the primitive simplicity of the Germans, he
discovered some permanent maxims, or customs, of public and
private life, which were preserved by faithful tradition
till the introduction of the art of writing, and of the
Latin tongue. (65) Before the election of the Merovingian
kings, the most powerful tribe, or nation, of the Franks,
appointed four venerable chieftains to compose the Salic
laws; (66) and their labours were examined and approved in
three successive assemblies of the people. After the baptism
of Clovis, he reformed several articles that appeared
incompatible with Christianity: the Salic law was again
amended by his sons; and at length, under the reign of
Dagobert, the code was revised and promulgated in its actual
form, one hundred years after the establishment of the
French monarchy. Within the same period, the customs of the
'Ripuarians' were transcribed and published; and Charlemagne
himself, the legislator of his age and country, had
accurately studied the two national laws which still
prevailed among the Franks. (67) The same care was extended to
their vassals and the rude institutions of the Alemanni and
Basarians were diligently compiled and ratified by the
supreme authority of the Merovingian kings. The Visigoths
and Burgundians, whose conquests in Gaul preceded those of
the Franks, showed less impatience to attain one of the
principal benefits of civilised society. Euric was the first
of the Gothic princes who expressed in writing the manners
and customs of his people; and the composition of the
Burgundian laws was a measure of policy rather than of
justice, to alleviate the yoke and regain the affections of
their Gallic subjects. (68) Thus, by a singular coincidence,
the Germans framed their artless institutions at a time when
the elaborate system of Roman jurisprudence was finally
consummated. In the Salic laws, and the Pandects of
Justinian, we may compare the first rudiments, and the full
maturity, of civil wisdom; and whatever prejudices may be
suggested in favour of barbarism, our calmer reflections
will ascribe to the Romans the superior advantages, not only
of science and reason, but of humanity and justice. Yet the
laws of the barbarians were adapted to their wants and
desires, their occupations and their capacity; and they all
contributed to preserve the peace, and promote the
improvements, of the society for whose use they were
originally established. The Merovingians, instead of
imposing a uniform rule of conduct on their various
subjects, permitted each people, and each family, of their
empire freely to enjoy their domestic institutions; (69) nor
were the Romans excluded from the common benefits of this
legal toleration. (70) The children embraced the law of their
parents, the wife that of her husband, the freedman that of
his patron; and in all causes where the parties were of
different nations, the plaintiff or accuser was obliged to
follow the tribunal of the defendant, who may always plead a
judicial presumption of right or innocence. A more ample
latitude was allowed, if every citizen, in the presence of
the judge, might declare the law under which he desired to
live, and the national society to which he chose to belong.
Such an indulgence would abolish the partial distinctions of
victory: and the Roman provincials might patiently acquiesce
in the hardships of their condition, since it depended on
themselves to assume the privilege, if they dared to assert
the character, of free and warlike barbarians. (71)
When justice inexorably requires the death of a murderer,
each private citizen is fortified by the assurance that the
laws, the magistrate, and he whole community, are the
guardians of his personal safety. But in the loose society
of the Germans, revenge was always honourable, and often
meritorious: the independent warrior chastised, or
vindicated, with his own hand, the injuries which he had
offered or received; and he had only to dread the resentment
of the sons and kinsmen of the enemy whom he had sacrificed
to his selfish or angry passions. The magistrate, conscious
of his weakness, interposed, not to punish, but to
reconcile; and he was satisfied if he could persuade or
compel the contending parties to pay and to accept the
moderate fine which had been ascertained as the price of
blood. (72) The fierce spirit of the Franks would have opposed
a more rigorous sentence; the same fierceness despised these
ineffectual restraints; and, when their simple manners had
been corrupted by the wealth of Gaul, the public peace was
continually violated by acts of hasty or deliberate guilt.
In every just government the same penalty is inflicted, or
at least is imposed, for the murder of a peasant or a
prince. But the national inequality established by the
Franks in their criminal proceedings was the last insult and
abuse of conquest. (73) In the calm moments of legislation
they solemnly pronounced that the life of a Roman was of
smaller value than that of a barbarian. The Antrustion, (74) a
name expressive of the most illustrious birth or dignity
among the Franks, was appreciated at the sum of six hundred
pieces of gold; while the noble provincial, who was admitted
to the king's table, might be legally murdered at the
expense of three hundred pieces. Two hundred were deemed
sufficient for a Frank of ordinary condition; but the meaner
Romans were exposed to disgrace and danger by a trifling
compensation of one hundred, or even fifty, pieces of gold.
Had these laws been regulated by any principle of equity or
reason, the public protection should have supplied, in just
proportion, the want of personal strength. But the
legislator had weighed in the scale, not of justice, but of
policy, the loss of a soldier against that of a slave: the
head of an insolent and rapacious barbarian was guarded by a
heavy fine; and the slightest aid was afforded to the most
defenceless subjects. Time insensibly abated the pride of
the conquerors, and the patience of the vanquished; and the
boldest citizen was taught by experience that he might
suffer more injuries than he could inflict. As the manners
of the Franks became less ferocious, their laws were
rendered more severe; and the Merovingian kings attempted to
imitate the impartial rigour of the Visigoths and
Burgundians. (75) Under the empire of Charlemagne murder was
universally punished with death; and the use of capital
punishments has been liberally multiplied in the
jurisprudence of modern Europe. (76)
The civil and military professions, which had been separated
by Constantine, were again united by the barbarians. The
harsh sound of the Teutonic appellations was mollified into
the Latin titles of Duke, of Count, or of Praefect; and the
same officer assumed, within his district, the command of
the troops and the administration of justice. (77) But the
fierce and illiterate chieftain was seldom qualified to
discharge the duties of a judge, which require all of the
faculties of a philosophic mind, laboriously cultivated by
experience and study; and his rude ignorance was compelled
to embrace some simple and visible methods of ascertaining
the cause of justice. In every religion the Deity has been
invoked to confirm the truth, or to punish the falsehood, of
human testimony; but this powerful instrument was misapplied
and abused by the simplicity of the German legislators. The
party accused might justify his innocence, by producing
before their tribunal a number of friendly witnesses, who
solemnly declared their belief or assurance that he was not
guilty. According to the weight of the charge this legal
number of 'compurgators' was multiplied: seventy-two voices
were required to absolve an incendiary or assassin; and when
the chastity of a queen of France was suspected, three
hundred gallant nobles swore, without hesitation, that the
infant prince had been actually begotten by her deceased
husband. (78) The sin and scandal of manifest and frequent
perjuries engaged the magistrates to remove these dangerous
temptations, and to supply the defects of human testimony by
the famous experiments of fire and water. These
extraordinary trials were so capriciously contrived, that in
some cases guilt, and innocence in others, could not be
proved without the interposition of a miracle. Such miracles
were readily provided by fraud and credulity; the most
intricate causes were determined by this easy and infallible
method; and the turbulent barbarians, who might have
disdained the sentence of the magistrate, submissively
acquiesced in the judgment of God. (79)
But the trials by single combat gradually obtained superior
credit and authority among a warlike people, who could not
believe that a brave man deserved to suffer, or that a
coward deserved to live. (80) Both in civil and criminal
proceedings, the plaintiff, or accuser, the defendant, or
even the witness, were exposed to mortal challenge from the
antagonist who was destitute of legal proofs; and it was
incumbent on them either to desert their cause or publicly
to maintain their honour in the lists of battle. They fought
either on foot or on horseback, according to the custom of
their nation; (81) and the decision of the sword or lance was
ratified by the sanction of Heaven, of the judge, and of the
people. This sanguinary law was introduced in to Gaul by the
Burgundians; and their legislator Gundobald (82) condescended
to answer the complaints and objections of his subject
Avitus. "Is it not true," said the king of Burgundy to the
bishop, "that the event of national wars and private combats
is directed by the judgment of God; and that his providence
awards the victory to the juster cause?" By such prevailing
arguments, the absurd and cruel practice of judicial duels,
which had been peculiar to some tribes of Germany, was
propagated and established in all the monarchies of Europe,
from Sicily to the Baltic. At the end of ten centuries the
reign of legal violence was not totally extinguished; and
the ineffectual censures of saints, of popes, and of synods,
may seem to prove that the influence of superstition is
weakened by its unnatural alliance with reason and humanity
The tribunals were stained with the blood, perhaps, of
innocent and respectable citizens; the law, which now
favours the rich, then yielded to the strong; and the old,
the feeble, and the infirm, were condemned either to
renounce their fairest claims and possessions, to sustain
the dangers of an unequal conflict, (83) or to trust the
doubtful aid of a mercenary champion. This oppressive
jurisprudence was imposed on the provincials of Gaul who
complained of any injuries in their persons and property.
Whatever might be the strength or courage of individuals,
the victorious barbarians excelled in the love and exercise
of arms; and the vanquished Roman was unjustly summoned to
repeat, in his own person, the bloody contest which had been
already decided against his country. (84)
A devouring host of one hundred and twenty thousand Germans
had formerly passed the Rhine under the command of
Ariovistus. One-third part of the fertile lands of the
Sequani was appropriated to their use; and the conqueror
soon repeated his oppressive demand of another third, for
the accommodation of a new colony of twenty-four thousand
barbarians whom he had invited to share the rich harvest of
Gaul. (85) At the distance of five hundred years the Visigoths
and Burgundians, who revenged the defeat of Ariovistus,
usurped the same unequal proportion of two-thirds of the
subject lands. But this distribution, instead of spreading
over the province, may be reasonably confined to the
peculiar districts where the victorious people had been
planted by their own choice or by the policy of their
leader. In these districts each barbarian was connected by
the ties of hospitality with some Roman provincial. To this
unwelcome guest the proprietor was compelled to abandon
two-thirds of his patrimony: but the German, a shepherd and
a hunter, might sometimes content himself with a spacious
range of wood and pasture, and resign the smallest, though
most valuable, portion to the toil of the industrious
husbandman. (86) The silence of ancient and authentic
testimony has encouraged an opinion that the rapine of the
Franks was not moderated or disguised by the forms of a
legal division; that they dispersed themselves over the
provinces of Gaul without order or control; and that each
victorious robber, according to his wants, his avarice, and
his strength, measured with his sword the extent of his new
inheritance. At a distance from their sovereign the
barbarians might indeed be tempted to exercise such
arbitrary depredation; but the firm and artful policy of
Clovis must curb a licentious spirit which would aggravate
the misery of the vanquished whilst it corrupted the union
and discipline of the conquerors. The memorable vase of
Soissons is a monument and a pledge of the regular
distribution of the Gallic spoils. It was the duty and the
interest of Clovis to provide rewards for a successful army,
and settlements for a numerous people, without inflicting
any wanton or superfluous injuries on the loyal catholics of
Gaul. The ample fund which he might lawfully acquire of the
Imperial patrimony, vacant lands, and Gothic usurpations,
would diminish the cruel necessity of seizure and
confiscation, and the humble provincials would more
patiently acquiesce in the equal and regular distribution of
their loss. (87)
The wealth of the Merovingian princes consisted in their
extensive domain. After the conquest of Gaul they still
delighted in the rustic simplicity of their ancestors; the
cities were abandoned to solitude and decay; and their
coins, their charters, and their synods, are still inscribed
with the names of the villas or rural palaces in which they
successively resided. One hundred and sixty of these
palaces, a title which need not excite any unseasonable
ideas of art or luxury, were scattered through the provinces
of their kingdom; and if some might claim the honours of a
fortress, the far greater part could be esteemed only in the
light of profitable farms. The mansion of the long-haired
kings was surrounded with convenient yards and stables for
the cattle and the poultry; the garden was planted with
useful vegetables; the various trades, the labours of
agriculture, and even the arts of hunting and fishing, were
exercised by servile hands for the emolument of the
sovereign; his magazines were filled with corn and wine,
either for sale or consumption; and the whole administration
was conducted by the strictest maxims of private economy. (88)
This ample patrimony was appropriated to supply the
hospitable plenty of Clovis and his successors, and to
reward the fidelity of their brave companions, who, both in
peace and war, were devoted to their personal service.
Instead of a horse or a suit of armour, each companion,
according to his rank, or merit, or favour, was invested
with a benefice, the primitive name and most simple form of
the feudal possessions . These gifts might be resumed at the
pleasure of the sovereign; and his feeble prerogative
derived some support from the influence of his liberality.
But this dependent tenure was gradually abolished (89) by the
independent and rapacious nobles of France, who established
the perpetual property and hereditary succession of their
benefices; a revolution salutary to the earth, which had
been injured or neglected by its precarious masters. (90)
Besides these royal and beneficiary estates, a large
proportion had been assigned, in the division of Gaul, of
allodial and Salic lands: they were exempt from tribute, and
the Salic lands were equally shared among the male
descendants of the Franks. (91)
In the bloody discord and silent decay of the Merovingian
line a new order of tyrants arose in the provinces, who,
under the appellation of 'Seniors' or Lords, usurped a right
to govern and a licence to oppress the subjects of their
peculiar territory. Their ambition might be checked by the
hostile resistance of an equal: but the laws were
extinguished; and the sacrilegious barbarians, who dared to
provoke the vengeance of a saint or bishop, (92) would seldom
respect the landmarks of a profane and defenceless
neighbour. The common or public rights of nature, such as
they had always been deemed by the Roman jurisprudence, (93)
were severely restrained by the German conquerors, whose
amusement, or rather passion, was the exercise of hunting.
The vague dominion which MAN has assumed over the wild
inhabitants of the earth, the air, and the waters, was
confined to some fortunate individuals of the human species.
Gaul was again overspread with woods; and the animals, who
were reserved for the use or pleasure of the lord, might
ravage with impunity the fields of his industrious vassals.
The chase was the sacred privilege of the nobles and their
domestic servants. Plebeian transgressors were legally
chastised with stripes and imprisonment; (94) but in an age
which admitted a slight composition for the life of a
citizen, it was a capital crime to destroy a stag or a wild
bull within the precincts of the royal forests. (95)
According to the maxims of ancient war, the conqueror became
the lawful master of the enemy whom he had subdued and
spared: (96) and the fruitful cause of personal slavery, which
had been almost suppressed by the peaceful sovereignty of
Rome, was again revived and multiplied by the perpetual
hostilities of the independent barbarians. The Goth, the
Burgundian, or the Frank, who returned from a successful
expedition, dragged after him a long train of sheep, of
oxen, and of human captives, whom he treated with the same
brutal contempt. The youths of an elegant form and ingenuous
aspect were set apart for the domestic service; a doubtful
situation, which alternately exposed them to the favourable
or cruel impulse of passion. The useful mechanics and
servants (smiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, cooks,
gardeners, dyers, and workmen in gold and silver, etc.)
employed their skill for the use or profit of the master.
But the Roman captives who were destitute of art, but
capable of labour, were condemned, without regard to their
former rank, to tend the cattle and cultivate the lands of
the barbarians. The number of the hereditary bondsmen who
were attached to the Gallic estates was continually
increased by new supplies; and the servile people, according
to the situation and temper of their lords, was sometimes
raised by precarious indulgence, and more frequently
depressed by capricious despotism. (97) An absolute power of
life and death was exercised by these lords; and when they
married their daughters, a train of useful servants, chained
on the waggons to prevent their escape, was sent as a
nuptial present into a distant country. (98) The majesty of
the Roman laws protected the liberty of each citizen against
the rash effects of his own distress or despair. But the
subjects of the Merovingian kings might alienate their
personal freedom; and this act of legal suicide, which was
familiarly practised, is expressed in terms most disgraceful
and afflicting to the dignity of human nature. (99) The
example of the poor, who purchased life by the sacrifice of
all that can render life desirable, was gradually imitated
by the feeble and the devout, who, in times of public
disorder, pusillanimously crowded to shelter themselves
under the battlements of a powerful chief and around the
shrine of a popular saint. Their submission was accepted by
these temporal or spiritual patrons; and the hasty
transaction irrecoverably fixed their own condition and that
of their latest posterity. From the reign of Clovis, during
five successive centuries, the laws and manners of Gaul
uniformly tended to promote the increase, and to confirm the
duration, of personal servitude. Time and violence almost
obliterated the intermediate ranks of society, and left an
obscure and narrow interval between the noble and the slave.
This arbitrary and recent division has been transformed by
pride and prejudice into a national distinction, universally
established by the arms and the laws of the Merovingians.
The nobles, who claimed their genuine or fabulous descent
from the independent and victorious Franks, have asserted
and abused the indefeasible right of conquest over a
prostrate crowd of slaves and plebeians, to whom they
imputed the imaginary disgrace of a Gallic or Roman
extraction.
The general state and revolutions of France, a name which
was imposed by the conquerors, may be illustrated by the
particular example of a province, a diocese, or a senatorial
family. Auvergne had formerly maintained a just pre-eminence
among the independent states and cities of Gaul. The brave
and numerous inhabitants displayed a singular trophy - the
sword of Caesar himself, which he had lost when he was
repulsed before the walls of Gergovia. (100) As the common
offspring of Troy, they claimed a fraternal alliance with
the Romans; (101) and if each province had imitated the
courage and loyalty of Auvergne, the fall of the Western
empire might have been prevented or delayed. They firmly
maintained the fidelity which they had reluctantly sworn to
the Visigoths; but when their bravest nobles had fallen in
the battle of Poitiers, they accepted without resistance a
victorious and catholic sovereign. This easy and valuable
conquest was achieved and possessed by Theodoric, the eldest
son of Clovis: but the remote province was separated from
his Austrasian dominions by the intermediate kingdoms of
Soisson, Paris, and Orleans, which formed, after their
father's death, the inheritance of his three brothers. The
king of Paris, Childebert, was tempted by the neighbourhood
and beauty of Auvergne. (102) The upper country, which rises
towards the south into the mountains of the Cevennes,
presented a rich and various prospect of woods and pastures;
the sides of the hills were clothed with vines; and each
eminence was crowned with a villa or castle. In the Lower
Auvergne, the river Allier flows through the fair and
spacious plain of Limagne; and the inexhaustible fertility
of the soil supplied, and still supplies, without any
interval of repose, the constant repetition of the same
harvests. (103) On the false report that their lawful
sovereign had been slain in Germany, the city and diocese of
Auvergne were betrayed by the grandson of Sidonius
Apollinaris. Childebert enjoyed this clandestine victory;
and the free subjects of Theodoric threatened to desert his
standard if he indulged his private resentment while the
nation was engaged in the Burgundian war. But the Franks of
Austrasia soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence of their
king. "Follow me," said Theodoric, "into Auvergne; I will
lead you into a province where you may acquire gold, silver,
slaves, cattle, and precious apparel, to the full extent of
your wishes. I repeat my promise; I give you the people and
their wealth as your prey; and you may transport them at
pleasure into your own country." By the execution of this
promise Theodoric justly forfeited the allegiance of a
people whom he devoted to destruction. His troops,
reinforced by the fiercest barbarians of Germany, (104) spread
desolation over the fruitful face of Auvergne; and two
places only, a strong castle and a holy shrine, were saved
or redeemed from their licentious fury. The castle of
Meroliac (105) was seated on a lofty rock, which rose an
hundred feet above the surface of the plain; and a large
reservoir of fresh water was enclosed with some arable lands
within the circle of its fortifications. The Franks beheld
with envy and despair this impregnable fortress: but they
surprised a party of fifty stragglers; and, as they were
oppressed by the number of their captives, they fixed at a
trifling ransom the alternative of life or death for these
wretched victims, whom the cruel barbarians were prepared to
massacre on the refusal of the garrison. Another detachment
penetrated as far as Brivas, or Brioude, where the
inhabitants, with their valuable effects, had taken refuge
in the sanctuary of St. Julian. The doors of the church
resisted the assault, but a daring soldier entered through a
window of the choir and opened a passage to his companions.
The clergy and people, the sacred and the profane spoils,
were rudely torn from the altar; and the sacrilegious
division was made at a small distance from the town of
Brioude. But this act of impiety was severely chastised by
the devout son of Clovis He punished with death the most
atrocious offenders; left their secret accomplices to the
vengeance of St. Julian; released the captives; restored the
plunder; and extended the rights of sanctuary five miles
round the sepulchre of the holy martyr. (106)
Before the Austrasian army retreated from Auvergne,
Theodoric exacted some pledges of the future loyalty of a
people whose just hatred could be restrained only by their
fear. A select band of noble youths, the sons of the
principal senators, was delivered to the conqueror as the
hostages of the faith of Childebert and of their countrymen.
On the first rumour of war or conspiracy these guiltless
youths were reduced to a state of servitude; and one of
them, Attalus, (107) whose adventures are more particularly
related, kept his master's horses in the diocese of Treves.
After a painful search he was discovered in this unworthy
occupation, by the emissaries of his grandfather, Gregory
bishop of Langres; but his offers of ransom were sternly
rejected by the avarice of the barbarian, who required an
exorbitant sum of ten pounds of gold for the freedom of his
noble captive. His deliverance was effected by the hardy
stratagem of Leo, a slave belonging to the kitchens of the
bishop of Langres. (108) An unknown agent easily introduced
him into the same family. The barbarian purchased Leo for
the price of twelve pieces of gold; and was pleased to learn
that he was deeply skilled in the luxury of an episcopal
table: "Next Sunday," said the Frank, "I shall invite my
neighbours and kinsmen. Exert thy art, and force them to
confess that they have never seen or tasted such an
entertainment, even in the king's house." Leo assured him
that, if he would provide a sufficient quantity of poultry,
his wishes should be satisfied. The master, who already
aspired to the merit of elegant hospitality, assumed as his
own the praise which the voracious guests unanimously
bestowed on his cook; and the dexterous Leo insensibly
acquired the trust and management of his household. After
the patient expectation of a whole year, he cautiously
whispered his design to Attalus, and exhorted him to prepare
for flight in the ensuing night. At the hour of midnight the
intemperate guests retired from table, and the Frank's
son-in-law, whom Leo attended to his apartment with a
nocturnal potation, condescended to jest on the facility
with which he might betray his trust. The intrepid slave,
after sustaining this dangerous raillery, entered his
master's bedchamber; removed his spear and shield; silently
drew the fleetest horses from the stable; unbarred the
ponderous gates; and excited Attalus to save his life and
liberty by incessant diligence. Their apprehensions urged
them to leave their horses on the banks of the Meuse; (109)
they swam the river, wandered three days in the adjacent
forest, and subsisted only by the accidental discovery of a
wild plum-tree. As they lay concealed in a dark thicket,
they heard the noise of horses; they were terrified by the
angry countenance of their master, and they anxiously
listened to his declaration that, if he could seize the
guilty fugitives, one of them he would cut in pieces with
his sword, and would expose the other on a gibbet. At length
Attalus and his faithful Leo reached the friendly habitation
of a presbyter of Rheims, who recruited their fainting
strength with bread and wine, concealed them from the search
of their enemy, and safely conducted them beyond the limits
of the Austrasian kingdom to the episcopal palace of
Langres. Gregory embraced his grandson with tears of joy,
gratefully delivered Leo with his whole family from the yoke
of servitude, and bestowed on him the property of a farm,
where he might end his days in happiness and freedom.
Perhaps this singular adventure, which is marked with so
many circumstances of truth and nature, was related by
Attalus himself to his cousin or nephew, the first historian
of the Franks. Gregory of Tours (110) was born about sixty
years after the death of Sidonius Apollinaris; and their
situation was almost similar, since each of them was a
native of Auvergne, a senator, and a bishop. The difference
of their style and sentiments may, therefore, express the
decay of Gaul; and clearly ascertain how much, in so short a
space, the human mind had lost of its energy and refinement.
(111)
We are now qualified to despise the opposite, and perhaps
artful, misrepresentations which have softened or
exaggerated the oppression of the Romans of Gaul under the
reign of the Merovingians. The conquerors never promulgated
any universal edict of servitude or confiscation: but a
degenerate people, who excused their weakness by the
specious names of politeness and peace, was exposed to the
arms and laws of the ferocious barbarians, who
contemptuously insulted their possessions, their freedom,
and their safety. Their personal injuries were partial and
irregular; but the great body of the Romans survived the
revolution, and still preserved the property and privileges
of citizens. A large portion of their lands was exacted for
the use of the Franks: but they enjoyed the remainder exempt
from tribute; (112) and the same irresistible violence which
swept away the arts and manufactures of Gaul destroyed the
elaborate and expensive system of Imperial despotism. The
provincials must frequently deplore the savage jurisprudence
of the Salic or Ripuarian laws but their private life, in
the important concerns of marriage, testaments, or
inheritance, was still regulated by the Theodosian Code; and
a discontented Roman might freely aspire or descend to the
title and character of a barbarian. The honours of the state
were accessible to his ambition: the education and temper of
the Romans more peculiarly qualified them for the offices of
civil government; and as soon as emmulation had rekindled
their military ardour, they were permitted to march in the
ranks, or even at the head, of the victorious Germans. I
shall not attempt to enumerate the generals and magistrates
whose names (113) attest the liberal policy of the
Merovingians. The supreme command of Burgundy, with the
title of Patrician was successively intrusted to three
Romans; and the last and most powerful, Mummolus, (114) who
alternately saved and disturbed the monarchy, had supplanted
his father in the station of count of Autun, and left a
treasure of thirty talents of gold and two hundred and fifty
talents of silver. The fierce and illiterate barbarians were
excluded, during several generations, from the dignities,
and even from the orders, of the church. (115) The clergy of
Gaul consisted almost entirely of native provincials; the
haughty Franks fell prostrate at the feet of their subjects
who were dignified with the episcopal character; and the
power and riches which had been lost in war were insensibly
recovered by superstition. (116) In all temporal affairs the
Theodosian Code was the universal law of the clergy; but the
barbaric jurisprudence had liberally provided for their
personal safety: a subdeacon was equivalent to two Franks;
the 'antrustion' and priest were held in similar estimation;
and the life of a bishop was appreciated far above the
common standard, at the price of nine hundred pieces of
gold. (117) The Romans communicated to their conquerors the
use of the Christian religion and Latin language; (118) but
their language and their religion had alike degenerated from
the simple purity of the Augustan and Apostolic age. The
progress of superstition and barbarism was rapid and
universal: the worship of the saints concealed from vulgar
eyes the God of the Christians, and the rustic dialect of
peasants and soldiers was corrupted by a Teutonic idiom and
pronunciation. Yet such intercourse of sacred and social
communion eradicated the distinctions of birth and victory;
and the nations of Gaul were gradually confounded under the
name and government of the Franks.
The Franks, after they mingled with their Gallic subjects,
might have imparted the most valuable of human gifts, a
spirit and system of constitutional liberty. Under a king,
hereditary but limited, the chiefs and counsellors might
have debated at Paris in the palace of the Caesars: the
adjacent field, where the emperors reviewed their mercenary
legions, would have admitted the legislative assembly of
freemen and warriors; and the rude model which had been
sketched in the woods of Germany (119) might have been
polished and improved by the civil wisdom of the Romans. But
the careless barbarians, secure of their personal
independence, disdained the labour of government: the annual
assemblies of the month of March were silently abolished,
and the nation was separated and almost dissolved by the
conquest of Gaul. (120) The monarchy was left without any
regular establishment of justice, of arms, or of revenue.
The successors of Clovis wanted resolution to assume, or
strength to exercise, the legislative and executive powers
which the people had abdicated: the royal prerogative was
distinguished only by a more ample privilege of rapine and
murder; and the love of freedom, so often invigorated and
disgraced by private ambition, was reduced among the
licentious Franks to the contempt of order and the desire of
impunity. Seventy-five years after the death of Clovis, his
grandson Gontran, king of Burgundy, sent an army to invade
the Gothic possessions of Septimania, or Languedoc. The
troops of Burgundy, Berry, Auvergne, and the adjacent
territories were excited by the hopes of spoil. They marched
without discipline under the banners of German or Gallic
counts: their attack was feeble and unsuccessful, but the
friendly and hostile provinces were desolated with
indiscriminate rage. The cornfields, the villages, the
churches themselves, were consumed by fire; the inhabitants
were massacred or dragged into captivity; and, in the
disorderly retreat, five thousand of these inhuman savages
were destroyed by hunger or intestine discord. When the
pious Gontran reproached the guilt or neglect of their
leaders, and threatened to inflict, not a legal sentence,
but instant and arbitrary execution, they accused the
universal and incurable corruption of the people. "No one,"
they said, "any longer fears or respects his king, his duke,
or his count. Each man loves to do evil, and freely indulges
his criminal inclinations. The most gentle correction
provokes an immediate tumult, and the rash magistrate who
presumes to censure or restrain his seditious subjects
seldom escapes alive from their revenge." (121) It has been
reserved for the same nation to expose, by their intemperate
vices, the most odious abuse of freedom, and to supply its
loss by the spirit of honour and humanity which now
alleviates and dignifies their obedience to an absolute
sovereign.
The Visigoths had resigned to Clovis the greatest part of
their Gallic possessions; but their loss was amply
compensated by the easy conquest and secure enjoyment of the
provinces of Spain. From the monarchy of the Goths, which
soon involved the Suevic kingdom of Gallicia, the modern
Spaniards still derive some national vanity, but the
historian of the Roman empire is neither invited nor
compelled to pursue the obscure and barren series of their
annals. (122) The Goths of Spain were separated from the rest
of mankind by the lofty ridge of the Pyrenaean mountains:
their manners and institutions, as far as they were common
to the Germanic tribes, have been already explained. I have
anticipated in the preceding chapter the most important of
their ecclesiastical events - the fall of Arianism and the
persecution of the Jews: and it only remains to observe some
interesting circumstances which relate to the civil and
ecclesiastical constitution of the Spanish kingdom.
After their conversion from idolatry or heresy, the Franks
and the Visigoths were disposed to embrace, with equal
submission, the inherent evils and the accidental benefits
of superstition. But the prelates of France, long before the
extinction of the Merovingian race, had degenerated into
fighting and hunting barbarians. They disdained the use of
synods, forgot the laws of temperance and chastity, and
preferred the indulgence of private ambition and luxury to
the general interest of the sacerdotal profession. (123) The
bishops of Spain respected themselves, and were respected by
the public: their indissoluble union disguised their vices,
and confirmed their authority; and the regular discipline of
the church introduced peace, order, and stability into the
government of the state. From the reign of Recared, the
first catholic king, to that of Witiza, the immediate
predecessor of the unfortunate Roderic, sixteen national
councils were successively convened. The six metropolitans,
Toledo, Seville, Merida, Braga, Tarragona, and Narbonne,
presided according to their respective seniority; the
assembly was composed of their suffragan bishops, who
appeared in person or by their proxies, and a place was
assigned to the most holy or opulent of the Spanish abbots.
During the first three days of the convocation, as long as
they agitated the ecclesiastical questions of doctrine and
discipline, the profane laity was excluded from their
debates, which were conducted, however, with decent
solemnity. But on the morning of the fourth day the doors
were thrown open for the entrance of the great officers of
the palace, the dukes and counts of the provinces, the
judges of the cities, and the Gothic nobles; and the decrees
of Heaven were ratified by the consent of the people. The
same rules .were observed in the provincial assemblies, the
annual synods, which were empowered to hear complaints and
to redress grievances; and a legal government was supported
by the prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy. The
bishops, who in each revolution were prepared to flatter the
victorious and to insult the prostrate, laboured with
diligence and success to kindle the flames of persecution,
and to exalt the mitre above the crown. Yet the national
councils of Toledo, in which the free spirit of the
barbarians was tempered and guided by episcopal policy, have
established some prudent laws for the common benefit of the
king and people. The vacancy of the throne was supplied by
the choice of the bishops and palatines; and after the
failure of the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still
limited to the pure and noble blood of the Goths. The
clergy, who anointed their lawful prince, always
recommended, and sometimes practised, the duty of
allegiance: and the spiritual censures were denounced on the
heads of the impious subjects who should resist his
authority, conspire against his life, or violate by an
indecent union the chastity even of his widow. But the
monarch himself, when he ascended the throne, was bound by a
reciprocal oath to God and his people that he would
faithfully execute his important trust. The real or
imaginary faults of his administration were subject to the
control of a powerful aristocracy; and the bishops and
palatines were guarded by a fundamental privilege that they
should not be degraded, imprisoned, tortured, nor punished
with death, exile, or confiscation, unless by the free and
public judgment of their peers. (124)
One of these legislative councils of Toledo examined and
ratified the code of laws which had been compiled by a
succession of Gothic kings, from the fierce Euric to the
devout Egica. As long as the Visigoths themselves were
satisfied with the rude customs of their ancestors, they
indulged their subjects of Aquitain and Spain in the
enjoyment of the Roman law. Their gradual improvement in
arts, in policy, and at length in religion, encouraged them
to imitate and to supersede these foreign institutions, and
to compose a code of civil and criminal jurisprudence for
the use of a great and united people. The same obligations
and the same privileges were communicated to the nations of
the Spanish monarchy; and the conquerors, insensibly
renouncing the Teutonic idiom, submitted to the restraints
of equity, and exalted the Romans to the participation of
freedom. The merit of this impartial policy was enhanced by
the situation of Spain under the reign of the Visigoths. The
provincials were long separated from their Arian masters by
the irreconcilable difference of religion. After the
conversion of Recared had removed the prejudices of the
catholics, the coasts both of the Ocean and Mediterranean
were still possessed by the Eastern emperors, who secretly
excited a discontented people to reject the yoke of the
barbarians, and to assert the name and dignity of Roman
citizens. The allegiance of doubtful subjects is indeed most
effectually secured by their own persuasion that they hazard
more in a revolt than they can hope to obtain by a
revolution; but it has appeared so natural to oppress those
whom we hate and fear, that the contrary system well
deserves the praise of wisdom and moderation. (125)
While the kingdoms of the Franks and Visigoths were
established in Gaul and Spain, the Saxons achieved the
conquest of Britain, the third great diocese of the
praefecture of the West. Since Britain was already separated
from the Roman empire, I might without reproach decline a
story familiar to the most illiterate, and obscure to the
most learned, of my readers. The Saxons, who excelled in the
use of the oar or the battleaxe, were ignorant of the art
which could alone perpetuate the fame of their exploits; the
provincials, relapsing into barbarism, neglected to describe
the ruin of their country; and the doubtful tradition was
almost extinguished before the missionaries of Rome restored
the light of science and Christianity. The declamations of
Gildas, the fragments or fables of Nennius, the obscure
hints of the Saxon laws and chronicles, and the
ecclesiastical tales of the venerable Bede, (126) have been
illustrated by the diligence, and sometimes embellished by
the fancy, of succeeding writers, whose works I am not
ambitious either to censure or to transcribe. (127) Yet the
historian of the empire may be tempted to pursue the
revolutions of a Roman province till it vanishes from his
sight; and an Englishman may curiously trace the
establishment of the barbarians from whom he derives his
name, his laws, and perhaps his origin.
About forty years after the dissolution of the Roman
government Vortigern appears to have obtained the supreme,
though precarious, command of the princes and cities of
Britain. That unfortunate monarch has been almost
unanimously condemned for the weak and mischievous policy of
inviting (128) a formidable stranger to repel the vexatious
inroads of a domestic foe. His ambassadors are despatched by
the gravest historians to the coast of Germany: they address
a pathetic oration to the general assembly of the Saxons,
and those warlike barbarians resolve to assist with a fleet
and army the suppliants of a distant and unknown island. If
Britain had indeed been unknown to the Saxons, the measure
of its calamities would have been less complete. But the
strength of the Roman government could not always guard the
maritime province against the pirates of Germany: the
independent and divided states were exposed to their
attacks, and the Saxons might sometimes join the Scots and
the Picts in a tacit or express confederacy of rapine and
destruction. Vortigern could only balance the various perils
which assaulted on every side his throne and his people; and
his policy may deserve either praise or excuse if he
preferred the alliance of those barbarians whose naval power
rendered them the most dangerous enemies, and the most
servicable allies. Hengist and Horsa, as they ranged along
the eastern coast with three ships, were engaged by the
promise of an ample stipend to embrace the defence of
Britain, and their intrepid valour soon delivered the
country from the Caledonian invaders. The Isle of Thanet, a
secure and fertile district, was alloted for the residence
of these German auxiliaries, and they were supplied
according to the treaty with a plentiful allowance of
clothing and provisions. This favourable reception
encouraged five thousand warriors to embark with their
families in seventeen vessels, and the infant power of
Hengist was fortified by this strong and seasonable
reinforcement. The crafty barbarian suggested to Vortigern
the obvious advantage of fixing, in the neighbourhood of the
Picts, a colony of faithful allies: a third fleet, of forty
ships, under he command of his son and nephew, sailed from
Germany, ravaged the Orkneys, and disembarked a new army on
the coast of Northumberland or Lothian, at the opposite
extremity of the devoted land. It was easy to foresee, but
it vas impossible to prevent, the impending evils. The two
nations were soon divided and exasperated by mutual
jealousies. The Saxons magnified all that they had done and
suffered in the cause of an ungrateful people; while the
Britons regretted the liberal rewards which could not
satisfy the avarice of those haughty mercenaries. The causes
of fear and hatred were inflamed into an irreconcilable
quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms; and if they perpetrated a
treacherous massacre during the security of a feast, they
destroyed the reciprocal confidence which sustains the
intercourse of peace and war. (129)
Hengist, who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain,
exhorted his countrymen to embrace the glorious opportunity:
he painted in lively colours the fertility of the soil, the
wealth of the cities, the pusillanimous temper of the
natives, and the convenient situation of a spacious solitary
island, accessible on all sides to the Saxon fleets. The
successive colonies which issued in the period of a century
from the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Rhine, were
principally composed of three valiant tribes or nations of
Germany; the Jutes, the old Saxons, and the Angles. The
Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner of Hengist,
assumed the merit of leading their countrymen in the paths
of glory, and of erecting in Kent the first independent
kingdom. The fame of the enterprise was attributed to the
primitive Saxons, and the common laws and language of the
conquerors are described by the national appellation of a
people which, at the end of four hundred years, produced the
first monarchs of South Britain. The Angles were
distinguished by their numbers and their success; and they
claimed the honour of fixing a perpetual name on the country
of which they occupied the most ample portion. The
barbarians, who followed the hopes of rapine either on the
land or sea, were insensibly blended with this triple
confederacy; the Frisians, who had been tempted by their
vicinity to the British shores, might balance during a short
space the strength and reputation of the native Saxons; the
Danes, the Prussians, the Rugians, are faintly described;
and some adventurous Huns, who had wandered as far as the
Baltic, might embark on board the German vessels for the
conquest of a new world. (130) But this arduous achievement
was not prepared or executed by the union of national
powers. Each intrepid chieftain, according to the measure of
his fame and fortunes, assembled his followers; equipped a
fleet of three, or perhaps of sixty, vessels; chose the
place of the attack, and conducted his subsequent operations
according to the events of the war and the dictates of his
private interest. In the invasion of Britain many heroes
vanquished and fell; but only seven victorious leaders
assumed, or at least maintained, the title of Kings.
Seven independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy, were founded
by the conquerors; and seven families, one of which has been
continued, by female succession, to our present sovereign,
derived their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the god
of war. It has been pretended that this republic of kings
was moderated by a general council and a supreme magistrate.
But such an artificial scheme of policy is repugnant to the
rude and turbulent spirit of the Saxons: their laws are
silent, and their imperfect annals afford only a dark and
bloody prospect of intestine discord. (131)
A monk, who in the profound ignorance of human life has
presumed to exercise the office of historian, strangely
disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its
separation from the Western empire. Gildas (132) describes in
florid language the improvements of agriculture, the foreign
trade which flowed with every tide into the Thames and the
Severn, the solid and lofty construction of public and
private edifices: he accuses the sinful luxury of the
British people; of a people, according to the same writer,
ignorant of the most simple arts, and incapable, without the
aid of the Romans, of providing walls of stone or weapons of
iron for the defence of their native land. (133) Under the
long dominion of the emperors, Britain had been insensibly
moulded into the elegant and servile form of a Roman
province, whose safety was intrusted to a foreign power. The
subjects of Honorius contemplated their new freedom with
surprise and terror, they were left destitute of any civil
or military constitution; and their uncertain rulers wanted
either skill, or courage, or authority to direct the public
force against the common enemy. The introduction of the
Saxons betrayed their internal weakness, and degraded the
character both of the prince and people. Their consternation
magnified the danger, the want of union diminished their
resources, and the madness of civil factions was more
solicitous to accuse than to remedy the evils which they
imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries. Yet the
Britons were not ignorant, they could not be ignorant, of
the manufacture or the use of arms: the successive and
disorderly attacks of the Saxons allowed them to recover
from their amazement, and the prosperous or adverse events
of the war added discipline and experience to their native
valour.
While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, without
resistance, to the barbarians, the British island, alone and
unaided, maintained a long, vigorous, though an
unsuccessful, struggle, against the formidable pirates who,
almost at the same instant, assaulted the northern, the
eastern, and the southern coasts. The cities, which had been
fortified with skill, were defended with resolution; the
advantages of ground, hills, forests, and morasses, were
diligently improved by the inhabitants; the conquest of each
district was purchased with blood and the defeats of the
Saxons are strongly attested by the discreet silence of
their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve the conquest
of Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of
thirty-five years, was confined to the possession of Kent;
and the numerous colony which he had planted in the North
was extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of
the West Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering
efforts of three martial generations. The life of Cerdic,
one of the bravest of the children of Woden, was consumed in
the conquest of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and the
loss which he sustained in the battle of Mount Badon reduced
him to a state of inglorious repose. Kenric, his valiant
son, advanced into Wiltshire; besieged Salisbury, at that
time seated on a commanding eminence; and vanquished an army
which advanced to the relief of the city. In the subsequent
battle of Marlborough, (134) his British enemies displayed
their military science. Their troops were formed in three
lines; each line consisted of three distinct bodies; and the
cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen were distributed
according to the principles of Roman tactics. The Saxons
charged in one weighty column, boldly encountered with their
short swords the long lances of the Britons, and maintained
an equal conflict till the approach of night. Two decisive
victories, the death of three British kings, and the
reduction of Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, established
the fame and power of Ceaulin, the grandson of Cerdic, who
carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Severn.
After a war of an hundred years the independent Britons
still occupied the whole extent of the western coast, from
the wall of Antoninus to the extreme promontory of Cornwall;
and the principal cities of the inland country still opposed
the arms of the barbarians. Resistance became more languid,
as the number and boldness of the assailants continually
increased. Winning their way by slow and painful efforts,
the Saxons, the Angles, and their various confederates,
advanced from the North, from the East, and from the South,
till their victorious banners were united in the centre of
the island. Beyond the Severn the Britons still asserted
their national freedom, which survived the heptarchy, and
even the monarchy of the Saxons. The bravest warriors, who
preferred exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in the
mountains of Wales: the reluctant submission of Cornwall was
delayed for some ages; (135) and a band of fugitives acquired
a settlement in Gaul, by their own valour, or the liberality
of the Merovingian kings. (136) The western angle of Armorica
acquired the new appellations of 'Cornwall' and the 'Lesser
Britain'; and the vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by
a strange people, who, under the authority of their counts
and bishops, preserved the laws and language of their
ancestors. To the feeble descendants of Clovis and
Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the customary
tribute, subdued the neighbouring dioceses of Vannes,
Rennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal,
state, which has been united to the crown of France. (137)
In a century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war, much
courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the
defence of Britain. Yet if the memory of its champions is
almost buried in oblivion, we need not repine; since every
age, however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently
abounds with acts of blood and military renown. The tomb of
Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, was erected on the margin of
the seashore, as a landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom
he had thrice vanquished in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius
Aurelian was descended from a noble family of Romans; (138)
his modesty was equal to his valour, and his valour, till
the last fatal action, (139) was crowned with splendid
success. But every British name is effaced by the
illustrious name of ARTHUR, (140) the hereditary prince of the
Silures, in South Wales and the elective king or general of
the nation. According to the most rational account, he
defeated, in twelve successive battles, the Angles of the
North and the Saxons of the West; but the declining age of
the hero was embittered by popular ingratitude and domestic
misfortunes. The events of his life are less interesting
than the singular revolutions of his fame. During a period
of five hundred years the tradition of his exploits was
preserved, and rudely embellished, by the obscure bards of
Wales and Armorica, who were odious to the Saxons, and
unknown to the rest of mankind. The pride and curiosity of
the Norman conquerors prompted them to inquire into the
ancient history of Britain; they listened with fond
credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the
merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their
common enemies. His romance, transcribed in the Latin of
Jeffrey of Monmouth, and afterwards translated into the
fashionable idiom of the times, was enriched with the
various, though incoherent, ornaments which were familiar to
the experience, the learning, or the fancy of the twelfth
century. The progress of a Phrygian colony, from the Tiber
to the Thames, was easily engrafted on the fable of the
Aeneid; and the royal ancestors of, Arthur derived their
origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the
Caesars. His trophies were decorated with captive provinces
and Imperial titles; and his Danish victories avenged the
recent injuries of his country. The gallantry and
superstition of the British hero, his feasts and
tournaments, and the memorable institution of his Knights of
the Round Table, were faithfully copied from the reigning
manners of chivalry; and the fabulous exploits of Uther's
son appear less incredible than the adventures which were
achieved by the enterprising valour of the Normans.
Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into Europe the
specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants,
flying dragons and enchanted palaces, were blended with the
more simple fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain
depended on the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every
nation embraced and adorned the popular romance of Arthur
and the Knights of the Round Table: their names were
celebrated in Greece and Italy; and the voluminous tales of
Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were devoutly studied by the
princes and nobles who disregarded the genuine heroes and
historians of antiquity. At length the light of science and
reason was rekindled; the talisman was broken; the visionary
fabric melted into air; and by a natural, though unjust,
reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the present
age is inclined to question the existence of Arthur. (141)
Resistance, if it cannot avert, must increase the miseries
of conquest; and conquest has never appeared more dreadful
and destructive than in the hands of the Saxons, who hated
the valour of their enemies, disdained the faith of
treaties, and violated, without remorse, the most sacred
objects of the Christian worship. The fields of battle might
be traced, almost in every district, by monuments of bones;
the fragments of falling towers were stained with blood; the
last of the Britons, without distinction of age or sex, was
massacred, (142) in the ruins of Anderida; (143) and the
repetition of such calamities was frequent and familiar
under the Saxon heptarchy. The arts and religion, the laws
and language, which the Romans had so carefully planted in
Britain, were extirpated by their barbarous successors.
After the destruction of the principal churches, the bishops
who had declined the crown of martyrdom retired with the
holy relics into Wales and Armorica; the remains of their
flocks were left destitute of any spiritual food; the
practice, and even the remembrance, of Christianity were
abolished; and the British clergy might obtain some comfort
from the damnation of the idolatrous strangers. The kings of
France maintained the privileges of their Roman subjects;
but the ferocious Saxons trampled on the laws of Rome and of
the emperors. The proceedings of civil and criminal
jurisdiction, the titles of honour the forms of office, the
ranks of society, and even the domestic rights of marriage,
testament, and inheritance, were finally suppressed; and the
indiscriminate crowd of noble and plebeian slaves was
governed by the traditionary customs which had been coarsely
framed for the shepherds and pirates of Germany. The
language of science, of business, and of conversation, which
had been introduced by the Romans, was lost in the general
desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or Celtic words
might be assumed by the Germans to express their new wants
and ideas; (144) but those illiterate Pagans preserved and
established the use of their national dialect. (145) Almost
every name, conspicuous either in the church or state,
reveals its Teutonic origin; (146) and the geography of
England was universally inscribed with foreign characters
and appellations. The example of a revolution so rapid and
so complete may not easily be found; but it will excite a
probable suspicion that the arts of Rome were less deeply
rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain; and that the native
rudeness of the country and its inhabitants was covered by a
thin varnish of Italian manners.
This strange alteration has persuaded historians, and even
philosophers, that the provincials of Britain were totally
exterminated; and that the vacant land was again peopled by
the perpetual influx and rapid increase of the German
colonies. Three hundred thousand Saxons are said to have
obeyed the summons of Hengist; (147) the entire emigration of
the Angles was attested, in the age of Bede, by the solitude
of their native country; (148) and our experience has shown
the free propagation of the human race, if they are cast on
a fruitful wilderness, where their steps are unconfined, and
their subsistence is plentiful. The Saxon kingdoms displayed
the face of recent discovery and cultivation: the towns were
small, the villages were distant; the husbandry was languid
and unskilful; four sheep were equivalent to an acre of the
best land; (149) an ample space of wood and morass was
resigned to the vague dominion of nature; and the modern
bishopric of Durham, the whole territory from the Tyne to
the Tees, had returned to its primitive state of a savage
and solitary forest. (150) Such imperfect population might
have been supplied, in some generations, by the English
colonies; but neither reason nor facts can justify the
unnatural supposition that the Saxons of Britain remained
alone in the desert which they had subdued. After the
sanguinary barbarians had secured their dominion and
gratified their revenge, it was their interest to preserve
the peasants, as well as the cattle, of the unresisting
country. In each successive revolution the patient herd
becomes the property of its new masters; and the salutary
compact of food and labour is silently ratified by their
mutual necessities. Wilfrid, the apostle of Sussex, (151)
accepted from his royal convert the gift of the peninsula of
Selsey, near Chichester, with the persons and property of
its inhabitants, who then amounted to eighty-seven families.
He released them at once from spiritual and temporal
bond-age; and two hundred and fifty slaves of both sexes
were baptised by their indulgent master. The kingdom of
Sussex, which spread from the sea to the Thames, contained
seven thousand families: twelve hundred were ascribed to the
Isle of Wight; and, if we multiply this vague computation,
it may seem probable that England was cultivated by a
million of servants, or villains, who were attached to the
estates of their arbitrary landlords. The indigent
barbarians were often tempted to sell their children or
themselves into perpetual, and even foreign, bondage; (152)
yet the special exemptions which were granted to national
slaves (153) sufficiently declare that they were much less
numerous than the strangers and captives who had lost their
liberty, or changed their masters, by the accidents of war.
When time and religion had mitigated the fierce spirit of
the Anglo-Saxons, the laws encouraged the frequent practice
of manumission; and their subjects, of Welsh or Cambrian
extraction, assumed the respectable station of inferior
freemen, possessed of lands, and entitled to the rights of
civil society. (154) Such gentle treatment might secure the
allegiance of a fierce people, who had been recently subdued
on the confines of Wales and Cornwall. The sage Ina, the
legislator of Wessex, united the two nations in the bands of
domestic alliance; and four British lords of Somersetshire
may be honourably distinguished in the court of a Saxon
monarch. (155) The independent Britons appear to have relapsed
into the state of original barbarism from whence they had
been imperfectly reclaimed. Separated by their enemies from
the rest of mankind, they soon became an object of scandal
and abhorrence to the catholic world. (156) Christianity was
still professed in the mountains of Wales; but the rude
schismatics, in the form of the clerical tonsure, and in the
day of the celebration of Easter, obstinately resisted the
imperious mandates of the Roman pontiffs. The use of the
Latin language was insensibly abolished, and the Britons
were deprived of the arts and learning which Italy
communicated to her Saxon proselytes. In Wales and Armorica,
the Celtic tongue, the native idiom of the West, was
preserved and propagated; and the Bards, who had been the
companions of the Druids, were still protected, in the
sixteenth century, by the laws of Elizabeth. Their chief, a
respectable officer of the courts of Pengwern, or Aberfraw,
or Caermarthen, accompanied the king's servants to war: the
monarchy of the Britons, which he sung in the front of
battle, excited their courage, and justified their
depredations; and the songster claimed for his legitimate
prize the fairest heifer of the spoil. His subordinate
ministers, the masters and disciples of vocal and
instrumental music, visited, in their respective circuits,
the royal, the noble, and the plebeian houses; and the
public poverty, almost exhausted by the clergy, was
oppressed by the importunate demands of the bards. Their
rank and merit were ascertained by solemn trials, and the
strong belief of supernatural inspiration exalted the fancy
of the poet and of his audience. (157) The last retreats of
Celtic freedom, the extreme territories of Gaul and Britain,
were less adapted to agriculture than to pasturage: the
wealth of the Britons consisted in their flocks and herds;
milk and flesh were their ordinary food; and bread was
sometimes esteemed, or rejected, as a foreign luxury.
Liberty had peopled the mountains of Wales and the morasses
of Armorica: but their populousness has been maliciously
ascribed to the loose practice of polygamy; and the houses
of these licentious barbarians have been supposed to contain
ten wives, and perhaps fifty children. (158) Their disposition
was rash and choleric they were bold in action and in
speech; (159) and as they were ignorant of the arts of peace,
they alternately indulged their passions in foreign and
domestic war. The cavalry of Armorica, the spearmen of
Gwent, and the archers of Merioneth, were equally
formidable; but their poverty could seldom procure either
shields or helmets; and the inconvenient weight would have
retarded the speed and agility of their desultory
operations. One of the greatest of the English monarchs was
requested to satisfy the curiosity of a Greek emperor
concerning the state of Britain; and Henry II. could assert,
from his personal experience, that Wales was inhabited by a
race of naked warriors, who encountered, without fear, the
defensive armour of their enemies. (160)
By the revolution of Britain the limits of science as well
as of empire were contracted. The dark cloud which had been
cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled
by the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the
Atlantic, and a Roman province was again lost among the
fabulous islands of the Ocean. One hundred and fifty years
after the reign of Honorius the gravest historian of the
times (161) describes the wonders of a remote isle, whose
eastern and western parts are divided by an antique wall,
the boundary of life and death, or, more properly, of truth
and fiction. The east is a fair country, inhabited by a
civilised people: the air is healthy, the waters are pure
and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and fruitful
increase. In the west, beyond the wall, the air is
infectious and mortal; the ground is covered with serpents;
and this dreary solitude is the region of departed spirits,
who are transported , from the opposite shores in
substantial boats and by living rowers. Some families of
fishermen, the subjects of the Franks, are excused from
tribute, in consideration of the mysterious office which is
performed by these Charons of the ocean. Each in his turn is
summoned, at the hour of midnight, to hear the voices, and
even the names, of the ghosts: he is sensible of their
weight, and he feels himself impelled by an unknown, but
irresistible, power. After this dream of fancy, we read with
astonishment that the name of this island is 'Brittia'; that
it lies in the ocean, against the mouth of the Rhine, and
less than thirty miles from the continent; that it is
possessed by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles, and
the Britons; and that some Angles had appeared at
Constantinople in the train of the French ambassadors. From
these ambassadors Procopius might be informed of a singular,
though not improbable, adventure, which announces the
spirit, rather than the delicacy, of an English heroine. She
had been betrothed to Radiger, king of the Varni, a tribe of
Germans who touched the ocean and the Rhine; but the
perfidious lover was tempted, by motives of policy, to
prefer his father's widow, the sister of Theodebert, king of
the Franks. (162) The forsaken princess of the Angles, instead
of bewailing, revenged her disgrace. Her warlike subjects
are said to have been ignorant of the use, and even of the
form, of a horse; but she boldly sailed from Britain to the
mouth of the Rhine, with a fleet of four hundred ships and
an army of one hundred thousand men. After the loss of a
battle, the captive Radiger implored the mercy of his
victorious bride, who generously pardoned his offence,
dismissed her rival, and compelled the king of the Varni to
discharge with honour and fidelity the duties of a husband.
(163) This gallant exploit appears to be the last naval
enterprise of the Anglo-Saxons. The arts of navigation, by
which they had acquired the empire of Britain and of the
sea, were soon neglected by the indolent barbarians, who
supinely renounced all the commercial advantages of their
insular situation. Seven independent kingdoms were agitated
by perpetual discord; and the British world was seldom
connected, either in peace or war, with the nations of the
continent. (164)
I have now accomplished the laborious narrative of the
decline and fall of the Roman empire, from the fortunate age
of Trajan and the Antonines to its total extinction in the
West, about five centuries after the Christian era. At that
unhappy period the Saxons fiercely struggled with the
natives for the possession of Britain: Gaul and Spain were
divided between the powerful monarchies of the Franks and
Visigoths and the dependent kingdoms of the Suevi and
Burgundians: Africa was exposed to the cruel persecution of
the Vandals and the savage insults of the Moors: Rome and
Italy, as far as the banks of the Danube, were afflicted by
an army of barbarian mercenaries, whose lawless tyranny was
succeeded by the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. All the
subjects of the empire, who, by the use of the Latin
language, more particularly deserved the name and privileges
of Romans, were oppressed by the disgrace and calamities of
foreign conquest; and the victorious nations of Germany
established a new system of manners and government in the
western countries of Europe. The majesty of Rome was faintly
represented by the princes of Constantinople, the feeble and
imaginary successors of Augustus. Yet they continued to
reign over the East, from the Danube to the Nile and Tigris;
the Gothic and Vandal kingdoms of Italy and Africa were
subverted by the arms of Justinian; and the history of the
Greek emperors may still afford a long series of instructive
lessons and interesting revolutions.