by Will Durant
Many Scotch nobles owned land in England, and were thereby mortgaged to obedience. But the older Gaelic Scots strongly resented the surrender. One of them, Sir William Wallace, organized an “army of the commons of Scotland,” routed the English garrison, and for a year ruled Scotland as regent for Balliol. Edward returned, and defeated Wallace at Falkirk (1298). In 1305 he captured Wallace and had him disemboweled and quartered according to the English law of treason.
A year later another defender was forced into the field. Robert Bruce, grandson of the Bruce who had claimed the throne in 1286, quarreled with John Comyn, a leading representative of Edward I in Scotland, and killed him. Thereby committed to rebellion, Bruce had himself crowned King, though only a small group of nobles supported him, and the pope excommunicated him for his crime. Edward once more marched north, but died on the way (1307). Edward II’s incompetence was a blessing for Bruce; the nobles and clergy of Scotland rallied to the outlaw’s banner; his reinforced armies, bravely led by his brother Edward and Sir James Douglas, captured Edinburgh, invaded Northumberland, and seized Durham. In 1314 Edward II led into Scotland the largest army that the land had ever seen, and met the Scots at Bannockburn. Bruce had had his men dig and conceal pits before his position; many of the English, charging, fell into the morass, and the English army was almost totally destroyed. In 1328 the regents for Edward III, involved in war with France, signed the Treaty of Northampton, making Scotland once more free.
Meanwhile a like struggle had come to other issue in Wales. William I claimed suzerainty over it as part of the realm of the defeated Harold. He had no time to add it to his conquests, but he set up three earldoms on its eastern frontier, and encouraged their lords to expand them into Wales. South Wales was meanwhile overrun by Norman buccaneers, who left the prefix Fitz (fils, son) on some Welsh names. In 1094 Cadwgan ap Bledyn subdued these Normans; in 1165 the Welsh defeated the English at Corwen; and Henry II, busy with Becket, acknowledged the independence of South Wales under its enlightened King Rhys ap Gruffydd (1171). Llywelyn the Great, by his ability in both war and statesmanship, extended his rule over nearly all the country. His sons quarreled and disordered the land, but his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (d. 1282) restored unity, made peace with Henry III, and created for himself the title of Prince of Wales. Edward I, intent on uniting Wales and Scotland with England, invaded Wales with an immense army and fleet (1282); Llywelyn died in a chance encounter with a small border force; his brother David was captured by Edward, and his severed head, with Llywelyn’s, was suspended from the Tower of London and left to bleach in the sun, wind, and rain. Wales was made a part of England (1284), and Edward in 1301 gave the title of Prince of Wales to the heir to the English throne.
Through these exaltations and depressions the Welsh kept their own language and their old customs, tilled their rough soil with obstinate courage, and solaced their days and nights with legend, poetry, music, and song. Their bards now gave form to the tales of the Mabinogion, enriching literature with a mystic melodious tenderness uniquely Welsh. Annually the bards and minstrels assembled in a national eisteddfod (from eistedd, to sit), which can be traced back to 1176; contests were held in oratory, poetry, singing, and the playing of musical instruments. The Welsh could fight bravely, but not long; they were soon eager to return and protect at first hand their women, children, and homes; and one of their proverbs wished that “every ray of the sun were a poniard to pierce the friends of war.”55
X. THE RHINELANDS: 1066–1315
The countries huddled about the lower Rhine and its many mouths were among the richest in the medieval world. South of the Rhine lay the county of Flanders, running from Calais through modern Belgium to the Scheldt. Formally it was a fief held from the French king; actually it was ruled by a dynasty of enlightened counts, checked only by the proud autonomy of the towns. Near the Rhine the people were Flemish, of Low German origin, and spoke a German dialect; west of the Lys River they were Walloons—a mixture of Germans and French on a Celtic base—and spoke a dialect of French. Commerce and industry fattened and disturbed Ghent, Audenaarde, Courtrai, Ypres, and Kassel in the Flemish northeast, and Bruges, Lille, and Douai in the Walloon southwest; in these cities population was denser than anywhere else in Europe north of the Alps. In 1300 the cities dominated the counts; the magistrates of the larger communities formed a supreme court for the county, and negotiated on their own authority with foreign cities and governments.56 Usually the counts co-operated with the cities, encouraged manufactures and trade, maintained a stable currency, and as early as 1100 —two centuries before England—established uniform measures and weights for all the towns.
The class war ultimately destroyed the freedom of both the cities and the counts. As the proletariat rose in number, resentment, and power, and the counts sided with them as an offset to the bumptious bourgeoisie, the merchants sought support from Philip Augustus of France, who promised it in the hope of bringing Flanders effectively under the French crown. England, anxious to keep the chief market for her wool out of the control of the French king, allied herself with the counts of Flanders and Hainault, the duke of Brabant, and Otto IV of Germany. Philip defeated this coalition at Bouvines (1214), subdued the counts, and protected the merchants in their oligarchic regime. The conflict of powers and classes continued. In 1297 Count Guy de Dampierre again allied Flanders with England; Philip the Fair invaded Flanders, imprisoned Guy, and forced him to cede the country to France. But when the French army moved to occupy Bruges the commons rose, overcame the troops, massacred rich merchants, and gained possession of the town. Philip sent a large army to avenge this affront; the workers of the towns formed themselves into an impromptu army, and defeated the knights and mercenaries of France in the battle of Courtrai (1302). The aged Guy de Dampierre was released and restored, and the strange alliance of feudal counts and revolutionary proletaires enjoyed a decade of victory.
What we now know as Holland was, from the third to the ninth century, part of the Frank kingdom. In 843 it became the northernmost portion of the buffer state of Lorraine created by the Treaty of Verdun. In the ninth and tenth centuries it was divided into feudal fiefs for better resistance to Norse raids. The Germans who cleared and settled the heavily wooded district north of the Rhine called it Holtland, i.e., Woodland. Most of the people were serfs, absorbed in the struggle to wrest a living from a land that had always to be diked or drained; half of Holland exists by the taming of the sea. But there were cities, too, not quite as rich and turbulent as the Flemish towns, but soundly based on steady industry and orderly trade. Dordrecht was the most prosperous; Utrecht was a center of learning; Haarlem was the seat of the Count of Holland; Delft became the capital for a time; then, toward 1250, The Hague.* Amsterdam made its debut in 1204, when a feudal lord built a fortress château at the mouth of the Amstel River; the sheltered site on the Zuider Zee, and the pervasive canals, invited commerce; in 1297 the city was made a free port, where goods could be received and reshipped free of customs duties; and thenceforth little Holland played a large part in the economic world. There as elsewhere commerce nourished culture; in the thirteenth century we find a Dutch poet, Maerlant, who vigorously satirized the luxurious life of the clergy; and in the monasteries Dutch art, in sculpture, pottery, painting, and illumination, was beginning its unique and extraordinary career.
South of Holland lay the duchy of Brabant, which then contained the cities of Antwerp, Brussels, and Louvain. Liége was ruled independently by its bishops, who allowed it a large measure of autonomy. Still farther south were the counties of Hainault, Namur, Limburg, and Luxembourg; the duchy of Lorraine, with the cities of Trier, Nancy, and Metz; and several other principalities, nominally subject to the German emperor, but left for the most part to their ruling counts. Each of these districts had a vibrant history of politics, love, and war; we salute them and move on. South and west of them lay Burgundy, in what is now east central France; its varying boundaries discourage definition; its politi
cal fortunes would fill vain tomes. In 888 Rudolf I made it an independent kingdom; in 1032 Rudolf III bequeathed it to Germany; but in that year part of it was united, as a duchy, to France. The dukes of Burgundy, like its early kings, governed with intelligence, and for the most part cherished peace. Their great age would come in the fifteenth century.
In classical times Switzerland was the home of diverse tribes—Helvetii, Raeti, Lepontii—of mixed Celtic, Teutonic, and Italic origin. In the third century the Alemanni occupied and Germanized the northern plateau. After the collapse of the Carolingian Empire the land was divided into feudal fiefs subject to the Holy Roman Empire. But it is difficult to enslave mountaineers; and the Swiss, while acknowledging some feudal dues, soon liberated themselves from serfdom. The villages in democratic assemblies chose their own officials, and ruled themselves by the ancient Germanic laws of the Alemanni and Burgundians. For mutual protection the peasants neighboring Lake Lucerne formed themselves into “Forest Cantons” (Waldstätte)-Uri, Nidwalden, and Schwyz, which later gave its name to the state. The sturdy burghers of the towns that had grown along the Alpine passes—Geneva, Constance, Fribourg, Berne, and Basel—elected their own officials, and administered their own laws. Their feudal overlords raised no objection to this so long as basic feudal taxes were paid.57
The Hapsburg counts who, from 1173, held the northern districts, proved an exception to this rule, and earned the hatred of the men of Schwyz by attempting to apply feudal dues in full severity. In 1291 the three Forest Cantons formed an “Everlasting League,” and swore a confederatio to give one another aid against external aggression or internal disturbance, to arbitrate all differences, and to recognize no judge who was not a native of the valley, or had bought his office. Lucerne, Zurich, and Constance soon joined the League. In 1315 the Hapsburg dukes sent two armies into Switzerland to enforce all feudal dues. In the pass of Morgarten the infantry of Schwyz and Uri, armed with halberds, defeated the Austrian cavalry in “the Marathon of Switzerland.” The Austrian forces withdrew; the three cantons renewed their oath of mutual support (December 9, 1315), and created the Swiss Confederacy. It was not yet an independent state; the free citizens acknowledged certain feudal obligations, and the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Emperor. But feudal lords and holy emperors had learned to respect the arms and liberties of the Swiss cantons and towns; and the victory of Morgarten had opened the way to the most stable and sensible democracy in history.*
XI. FRANCE: 1060–1328
1. Philip Augustus
At the accession of Philip II Augustus (1180) France was a minor and harassed state, hardly promising any grandeur to come. England held Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Touraine, and Aquitaine—a domain thrice the size of that directly controlled by the French king. Most of Burgundy adhered to Germany, and the flourishing county of Flanders was in effect an independent principality. So were the counties of Lyons, Savoy, and Chambéry. So was Provence—southeastern France—rich in wine, oil, fruit, poets, and the cities of Aries and Avignon, Aix and Marseille. The Dauphiné, centering about Vienne, had been bequeathed to Germany as part of Burgundy; it was now independently ruled by a dauphin who took his title from the dolphin that was an emblem of his family.
France proper was divided into duchies, counties, seignories, seneschalties, and bailliages (bailiwicks) governed—in order of increasing dependence upon the king—by dukes, counts, seigneurs, seneschals (royal stewards), and bailiffs. This loose aggregation, already called Francia in the ninth century, was in diverse degrees, and with many limitations, subject to the French king. Paris, his capital, was in 1180 a city of wooden buildings and muddy streets; its Roman name, Lutetia, had meant the town of mud. Philip Augustus, shocked by the smell of the thoroughfares that ran beside the Seine, ordered that all the streets of Paris should be paved with solid stone.59
He was the first of three powerful rulers who in this age raised France to the intellectual, moral, and political leadership of Europe. But there had been strong men before him. Philip I (1060–1108) made a secure niche for himself in history by divorcing his wife at forty and persuading Count Fulk of Anjou to cede to him the Countess Bertrade. A priest was found to solemnize the adultery as marriage, but Pope Urban II, coming to France to preach the First Crusade, excommunicated the King. Philip persisted in sin for twelve years; at last he sent Bertrade away and was shriven; but a while later he repented his repentance, and resumed his Queen. She traveled with him to Anjou, taught her two husbands amity, and seems to have served both of them to the best of her charms.60
Having grown fat at forty-five, Philip handed over the major affairs of state to his son Louis VI (1108–37), himself known as Louis the Fat. He deserved a better name. For twenty-four years he fought, finally with success, the robber barons who plundered travelers on the roads; he strengthened the monarchy by organizing a competent army; he did what he could to protect the peasants, the artisans, and the communes; and he had the good sense to make the Abbot Suger his chief minister and friend. Suger of St. Denis (1081–1151) was the Richelieu of the twelfth century. He managed the affairs of France with wisdom, justice, and farsight; he encouraged and improved agriculture; he designed and built one of the earliest and finest masterpieces of the Gothic style; and he wrote an illuminating account of his ministry and work. He was the most valuable bequest left by Louis the Fat to his son, whom Suger served till death.
Louis VII (1137–80) was the man of whom Eleanor of Aquitaine said that she had married a king only to find him a monk. He labored conscientiously at his royal tasks, but his virtues ruined him. His devotion to government appeared to Eleanor as marital neglect; his patience with her amours added insult to negligence; she divorced him, and gave her hand and her duchy of Aquitaine to Henry II of England. Disillusioned with life, Louis turned to piety, and left to his son the task of building a strong France.
Philip II Augustus, like a later Philippe, was a bourgeois gentilhomme on the throne: a master of practical intelligence softened with sentiment, a patron of learning with no taste for it, a man of shrewd caution and prudent courage, of quick temper and ready amnesty, of unscrupulous but controlled acquisitiveness, of a moderated piety that could be generous to the Church without allowing religion to countermand his politics, and of a patient perseverance that won what bold adventurousness might never have attained. Such a man, at once prosaic and auguste,* amiably inflexible and ruthlessly wise, was what his country needed at a time when, between Henry II’s England and Barbarossa’s Germany, France might have ceased to be.
His marriages disturbed Europe. His first wife, Isabella, died in 1189; and four years later he married Ingeborg, a princess of Denmark. These marriages were political, and brought more property than romance. Ingeborg was not to Philip’s taste; he ignored her after a day; and within the year he persuaded a council of French bishops to grant him a divorce. Pope Celestine III refused to confirm the decree. In 1196, defying the Pope, he married Agnes of Meran. Celestine excommunicated him, but Philip remained obstinate; “I had rather lose half my domains,” he said in a moment of tenderness, “than separate from Agnes.” Innocent III commanded him to take back Ingeborg; when Philip refused, the invincible Pope interdicted religious services in Philip’s domain. Philip, in a rage, deposed all bishops who obeyed the interdict. “Happy Saladin!” he mourned, “who had no pope above him”; and he threatened to turn Mohammedan.61 After four years of this spiritual war the people began to grumble with fear of hell. Philip dismissed his beloved Agnes (1202), but kept Ingeborg confined at Étampes till 1213, when he recalled her to his bed.
Amid these joys and tribulations Philip reconquered Normandy from England (1204), and in the next two years annexed Brittany, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou to his directly ruled terrain. He was now strong enough to dominate all the dukes, counts, and seigneurs of his realm; his baillis and seneschals supervised local government; his kingdom had become an international power, not a strip of land along the Seine. John of England, so shor
n, was not resigned; he persuaded Otto IV of Germany and the counts of Boulogne and Flanders to join him against this swelling France; John would attack through Aquitaine (still England’s), the others from the northeast. Instead of dividing his forces to meet these separate assaults, Philip led his main army against John’s allies, and defeated them at Bouvines, near Lille (1214). That battle decided many issues. It deposed Otto, secured the German throne to Frederick II, ended German hegemony, and hastened the decline of the Holy Roman Empire. It reduced the counts of Flanders to French obedience, added Amiens, Douai, Lille, and St. Quentin to the French crown, and in effect extended northeastern France to the Rhine. It left John helpless against his barons, and forced him to sign Magna Carta. It weakened monarchy and strengthened feudalism in England and Germany, while it strengthened monarchy and weakened feudalism in France. And it favored the growth of the French communes and middle classes, which had vigorously supported Philip in peace and war.
Having trebled the royal domain, Philip governed it with devotion and skill. Half the time at odds with the Church, he replaced ecclesiastics in council and administration with men from the rising lawyer class. He gave charters of autonomy to many cities, encouraged trade by privileges to merchants, alternately protected and plundered the Jews, and fattened his exchequer by commuting feudal services into money payments; the royal revenue was doubled from 600 to 1200 livres ($240,000) a day. In his reign the façade of Notre Dame was completed, and the Louvre was built as a fortress to guard the Seine.62 When Philip died (1223) the France of today had been born.