The Story of Europe

by Marshall, H. E.

  Mass was over. But the king still knelt on the steps of the altar, and a breathless silence held the great congregation. Then, as the king rose from his knees, Pope Leo III came towards him holding a golden crown high in his hands, and placed it upon the monarch's head.

  "To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, mighty and pacific Emperor, be life and victory," he cried.

  The crowd took up the words, and three times the great building rang with acclamations. Then came an outburst of song, and in chant after chant the voices of the choristers rose, beseeching God and His angels, and all the holy martyrs, to bless and aid the new-crowned emperor.

  The Holy Roman Empire

  Thus began the Holy Roman Empire which was to endure for a thousand years and be shattered at length by an upstart Corsican soldier.

  Was Charlemagne surprised and not altogether pleased to find this great title thus suddenly thrust upon him? Who can say? "Had I known what Leo was about to do," he said later, "I would never have entered St. Peter's on that Christmas morning." Yet for many years his thought had turned to some such title. Perhaps, however, he wished to take it at his own time, and of his own free will, and not to have it thrust upon him by an officious pope. Perhaps he saw that this act conferred more power upon the pope than honour upon the emperor, and that the time might come (as come it did) when no king of the Germans would dare to take the title of emperor until the crown had been placed upon his head by the bishop of Rome.

  When the news of this coronation reached Constantinople there was great wrath, and Charlemagne's right to take the title of Augustus was denied. But Charlemagne did his best to soothe the wrath. He tried to arrange marriages between his own family and the Empress Irene, and thus again unite the Empires of the East and West. But these efforts came to nothing, and less than two years after Charlemagne was crowned emperor Irene was deposed and soon after died.

  CHAPTER X

  The Treaty of Verdun—The Beginning of France, Italy, and Germany

  Charlemagne ruled as an emperor for more than thirteen years, during which time three emperors sat upon the Byzantine throne. With them all Charlemagne endeavoured to keep peace, sending them embassies, and calling them brother; but it was not until the year 812 that the Emperor Michael formally recognized Charlemagne's right to the imperial title.

  Then for hundreds of years there were two emperors, one in the East and one in the West, each claiming to be the rightful heir of the Cæsars.

  But although in the West the title of emperor endured, Charlemagne's Empire fell to pieces soon after his death, the whole state being filled with discord and violence. For it was built upon no solid foundation, but upon the will of one man.

  The Sons of Louis the Pious

  Charlemagne had many sons, but only one survived him. He is known as Louis the Pious, and was more fitted for the cloister than the throne. Even in his lifetime his unruly sons tried to rend the Empire from him, and after his death they quarrelled among themselves over their inheritance. After a time the two younger of these sons, Louis and Charles, joined together against Lothaire, the elder.

  At Strasburg they met together, and swore an oath of eternal friendship. The taking of this oath was made an occasion of solemn ceremony. The two armies were drawn up facing each other upon the plain, and in the space between the kings, in gorgeous robes, glittering with gold and jewels, met. Each made a speech, and then with great solemnity swore to stand by the other.

  Louis, being the elder, spoke first. "For the love of God," he said, "and for this Christian people and our common salvation, as much as God gives me to know and to do, I will aid my brother Charles in all things as one ought rightly to aid one's brother, on condition that he does as much for me. And I will never willingly make any compact with Lothaire which may injure this my brother Charles."

  Louis repeated the same words but in another language. For the interesting thing about this oath is that it was taken in two languages. It had been the dream of Charlemagne's life to unite all the Germans under one sceptre, so that they should be one people, speaking one language, and owning one ruler.

  Before he died he had even begun to write a German grammar. But already, less than thirty years after his death, there were two such widely differing languages spoken within the Empire that the Frankish soldiers of Charles and the Saxon soldiers of Louis could not understand each other. So Louis, speaking to his brother's Franks, spoke their language, and Charles, addressing the Saxon soldiers, used another language.

  Out of those two languages have grown modern French and modern German.

  You may see how they have developed from the few words from the beginning of the oath which follow:

  Old French: "Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poble et nostro commun salvament."

  Modern French: "Pour l'amour de Dieu, et pour le salut commun du peuple cretien et le notre."

  Old German: "In Godes Minna ind in thes Christianes folches ind unser bedhero gehaltnissi."

  Modern German: "Aus Liebe zu Gott und des Christlicher Volkes sowie unser beider Heiles halber."

  Those of you who know Latin can see at once what a strong influence that language had on the French spoken in the ninth century. The Vandals and the Goths, who had, in turn, conquered Gaul, left no trace even on the language. The Franks left little, and to-day there are not more than a thousand words of Germanic origin in the whole French language. Still fewer words can be traced to Celtic—the original language of the Gauls. Latin, the language of the Romans, is the chief element. Therefore we call it a Romance language—that is, one founded upon and developed from the language spoken by the ancient Romans. Italian and Spanish are also Romance languages, for in spite of repeated conquests by Vandals, Goths, Lombards, and Saracens, Latin remained the chief element in them.

  Latin, on the other hand, had little influence on the German language, which is merely a development of the old German tongue. Germany never came under the civilizing influences of Rome, and its language, among other things, has remained the most primitive and undeveloped language in Europe.

  MAP ILLUSTRATING THE TREATY OF VERDUN AND THE MARCH OF THE ARABS

  The Treaty of Verdun

  In the Strasburg oath we see the beginnings of modern French and of modern German. In the following year we see the beginnings of the separate existence of the two countries. For then all three brothers met together once more and signed the treaty known as the Treaty of Verdun, by which they agreed to divide the Empire. Lothaire, being the eldest, kept the title of Emperor, and to him was given Italy and a strip of land west of the Rhine, running right through the Empire, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.

  The land which lay east of this was given to Louis, and the land which lay west of it was given to Charles. Save that the two kingdoms were divided by the strip of land belonging to Lothaire, the land of Charles took roughly the form of the France of to-day, that of Louis the form of Germany. Here, then, we have the beginnings of three great states—France, Germany, and Italy.

  Nearly four hundred years had passed since the last Roman emperor of the West had been swept from his throne by an audacious Teuton. And in the turmoil of these centuries it would seem as if the Teutons had brought nothing in their train but bloodshed and discord and the destruction of art and learning. But to the reforming of Europe out of the fragments of the shattered Roman Empire the Teutons brought something new.

  In Rome the state was everything, the individual nothing. There was a great gulf between the powerful wealthy and the powerless poor, between the slave and the slave-owner. The slave-owner was almighty, the slave a mere chattel. But among the Teutons there were no slaves. They were a free people, and each man was conscious of his own personal worth in the community. The idea of this individual freedom was the Teutonic bequest to future ages. But in the torn fragments of the Roman Empire out of which new nations were being hammered, side by side with this idea of personal freedom there grew up another power which was, to a great extent, to null
ify it. This was the papal power.

  For many centuries in all the states of southern Europe the power of the Church was supreme. Only in the island of Britain, separated from the continent of Europe by the narrow seas, the power of the pope was never felt in its full force. It was there, therefore, that this idea of freedom was allowed to grow with least opposition, and at length developed fully.

  CHAPTER XI

  The Coming of the Northmen

  IN the last chapter we saw the dim beginnings of France, Italy, and Germany. But hundreds of years were to pass before these kingdoms really became settled. The period which followed the Treaty of Verdun was one of constant turmoil and bloodshed, for the kings were often feeble, sometimes bad, and their subjects were turbulent and rebellious. Even a strong king had endless difficulties to face.

  First, there was the lack of roads. One of the first things the Romans did in a conquered country was to build roads. They knew that roads were great conquerors and great civilizers. But the barbarians who split up the Roman Empire did not know the value of roads, so the wonderful Roman highways were allowed to fall into disrepair. In Saxony, which the Romans had never conquered, there were no roads at all. The difficulties, therefore, of travelling from one part of the kingdom to another were immense, the transport of an army extremely difficult. Without roads, too, commerce languished.

  Secondly, the king was almost always poor, for the system of taxation was very imperfect. Being unable quickly to travel all over the kingdom himself, the king was obliged to depute much of his authority to dukes and counts. Having little money, he paid them for their services in land, and their possessions often became so great that they were really more powerful than the king himself, and rebelled against his authority. So civil wars were constant.

  Besides these and other internal disturbances, there were frequent attacks from without to be repelled, and these alone were enough to prevent Europe from settling into peace.

  Soon after the death of Charlemagne the Saracens seized the island of Sicily, overran a great part of the south of the Italian Peninsula, and even threatened Rome itself. Avars and Hungarians from the wilds of Asia swept over Germany and northern Italy, and reached even to the borders of France, and at length settled in the land which is now called Hungary. And lastly, there came the Northmen. They were the last of the German tribes to attack the civilization of Europe, and they left more impression on it than almost any other, although they themselves became absorbed in the peoples they conquered.

  The Home of the Northmen

  Of their early history we know little or nothing. For while in southern and central Europe new kingdoms were being hammered out of the old Roman Empire, Europe beyond the Baltic was a region unknown. Until the end of the eighth century we know almost nothing of Scandinavia. Nearly all the Teutonic tribes, it is true, who took possession of the Empire came, or had traditions of having come, from the far north. They came from beyond the sluggish sea where dwelt a mighty people well skilled in the building of boats; they came "from the edge of the world." But little was known of this far-distant country.

  Those of you who have read the "Germania" of Tacitus may remember how he speaks of these northern peoples and their land. "They live on islands in the sea," he says. "Their strength lies not in military forces only, but also in their ships. . . . Beyond the islands there is another sea which is sluggish, and nearly always still. It is believed to encircle the earth, for here the light of the setting sun lasts until the sun rises again, and the light is bright enough to make pale the stars. Moreover, it is said that you can hear the sea hiss as the sun rises out of it and see the god's face, and the halo about his head. This is the end of the world, it is said, and it may well be so."

  The Northmen as Raiders

  Hundreds of years passed, and people knew little more about this strange northern country than they did in the time of Tacitus. At length, however, towards the end of the eighth century, driven by poverty and the necessity of finding new homes, or merely by the love of adventure, the heathen Northmen began to sail forth from their bays and fiords, and attack the Christian kingdoms of Europe. They came from what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, but in those days men called them all indiscriminately, Danes, Northmen, Vikings, or men of the bays and fiords. The English chronicles generally call them Danes, the French chronicles generally call them Northmen. But, by whatever name they were known, they made themselves for a hundred years the terror of seaboard Europe.

  For the attacks of the Northmen differed from those of any other barbarian people in that they came from the sea, and not from the land. They sailed in long, narrow vessels, capable of holding fifty or sixty men. Bow and stern were alike, so that the ship could be steered either way, and they were decorated with the head of a swan or dragon, or some other animal. But the dragon was the favourite. Rowers sat along the sides of the vessels, and there was also one large sail.

  Used as we are now to great sea-going monsters, the Viking ships seem the merest cockle-shells, and we marvel how men could venture forth upon the stormy North Sea in such frail craft. But venture forth they did, even upon the pathless ocean, and there seems now little doubt that five hundred years before Columbus the hardy Norsemen had landed upon the shores of North America.

  These dragon-ships became the pest of the seas and a terror to all seaboard dwellers. It was a new terror, too. For hitherto there had been peace upon the seas. Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Goths, Vandals, Franks, Lombards, and all the other lesser tribes which had swept over Europe in turn, had made their attacks by land. Except for Saracen or Vandal pirates, the seas had still remained the peaceful routes of trade. Now that was changed. War and bloodshed came from the sea, just when it seemed as if the beginnings of peace might dawn on land.

  The sea was the Northman's element. Yet, born sailor although he was, he seemed equally at home on land, where he proved himself a skilful, cunning, and absolutely cold-blooded fighter. They were blue-eyed, fair-haired, tall, and sinewy men. They wore their hair in long plaits, and dressed in gay colours, scarlet being much loved by them. They wore coats of mail and great horned helmets, and were armed with bow and arrows, hatchet, spear, and sword.

  They loved war and the ways of war and the weapons of war. Their songs were all of war and the mighty blows of heroes, and in these songs they gave poetic names to their ships and weapons. But more than any other weapon they loved their swords, and to them they gave the most poetic names, such as "the lightning of war," "the thorn of shields," "the helmet biter." The hilts and scabbards of these swords were often beautifully inlaid with gold and studded with jewels, and were handed on from hero to hero, and prized as no other gift was prized.

  Armed, then, at all points, these joyous, blood-thirsty pirates set forth in their dragon-ships. Along the sides they hung their gaily painted shields, ringed and bossed with metal, and leaning upon their spears, they stood in the prow, while the short oars flashed, and the wind sang through the sail. When storm winds blew and others sought the shelter of the shore, the dragon-ship sped forth, spurning as if in joy the foaming waves. Then, as day dawned, some sleeping village would hear the Viking battle-cry. Then bright swords gleamed, and sparing neither man nor woman, these Northmen plundered at will. At length, their fury and their greed sated, they mounted into their ship once more and sped away as swiftly as they had come, leaving behind them only smoking, blood-stained ruins where, but a few hours before, peaceful homes had stood.

  The first of these attacks of which we have any record was upon England, towards the end of the eighth century. But soon England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy all knew and dreaded the terrible Northmen. Their coasts were dotted with ruins, the bones of the dead lay bleaching on a thousand battlefields, and a new petition was added to men's prayers, "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us."

  CHAPTER XII

  The Northmen in France and England

  The Northmen as Settlers


  AT the beginning of their raids the Northmen only came to plunder, and made no attempt to settle in the lands they attacked. But as time went on they came not only to plunder but to settle. And wherever they settled a change came over them. They were so adaptable that they lost their individuality and became merged in the native population. They settled in England and became Englishmen, they settled in France and became Frenchmen. Later, these Norman-French conquered England and again, in time, became Englishmen.

  But before they finally settled there the attacks of the Northmen on France were both many and cruel. It was not the coasts only that they left desolate, for in their narrow vessels they sailed up the rivers, and towns and villages far inland were laid in ruins. Even Paris itself was threatened by them more than once.

  The Carolingian line was by this time dying out in feebleness, and weak kings, unable to punish the impudent invaders, paid them gold to depart. The Northmen accepted the gold, but they always returned again, each time in greater and greater numbers, ever more greedy, more bold, and more cruel than before. With sword and firebrand they laid waste the land until there were whole districts in the most fertile parts of France where it was said a man might wander for long days without seeing the smoke of a chimney or hearing the bark of a dog.

  "The heathen, like wolves in the night, seize upon the flocks of Christ," wails a writer of the time. "Churches are burned, women are led away captive, the people are slain. Everywhere there is mourning. From all sides cries and lamentations assail the ears of the king who, by his indolence, leaves his Christian folk to perish."