god of thunder, whom he had so long adored, was dragged through the streets of Kiow, and twelve sturdy barbarians battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was indignantly cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict of Wolodomir had proclaimed that all who should refuse the rites of baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince; and the rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his boyars. In the next generation the relics of paganism were finally extirpated; but as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave and sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament. of the North, 78 In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian æra the Christianity reign of the Gospel and of the church was extended over Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, A.D. 800-1100. Sweden, Poland, and Russia. The triumphs of apostolic zeal were repeated in the iron age of Christianity; and the northern and eastern regions of Europe submitted to a religion more different in theory than in practice from the worship of their native idols. A laudable ambition excited the monks both of Germany and Greece to visit the tents and huts of the barbarians: poverty, hardships, and dangers were the lot of the first missionaries; their courage was active and patient; their motive pure and meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the fruitful harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the proud and wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first conversions were free and spontaneous: an holy life and an eloquent tongue were the only arms of the missionaries; but the domestic fables of the pagans were silenced by the miracles and visions of the strangers; and the favourable temper of the chiefs was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest. The leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and saints, held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith on their subjects and neighbours: the coast of the Baltic, from Holstein to the gulf of Finland, was invaded under the standard of the cross; and the reign of idolatry was closed by the conversion of Lithuania in the fourteenth century. Yet truth and candour must acknowledge that the conversion of the 78 Consult the Latin text, or English version, of Mosheim's excellent History of the Church, under the first head or section of each of these centuries. 79 In the year 1000 the ambassadors of St. Stephen received from Pope Silvester the title of King of Hungary, with a diadem of Greek workmanship. It had been designed for the duke of Poland; but the Poles, by their own confession, were yet too barbarous to deserve an angelical and apostolical crown. (Katona, Hist. Critic. Regum Stirpis Arpadianæ, tom. i. p. 1-20.) North imparted many temporal benefits both to the old and the new Christians. The rage of war, inherent to the human species, could not be healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and peace; and the ambition of Catholic princes has renewed in every age the calamities of hostile contention. But the admission of the barbarians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society delivered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned to spare their brethren and cultivate their possessions.80 The establishment of law and order was promoted by the influence of the clergy; and the rudiments of art and science were introduced into the savage countries of the globe. The liberal piety of the Russian princes engaged in their service the most skilful of the Greeks to decorate the cities and instruct the inhabitants: the dome and the paintings of St. Sophia were rudely copied in the churches of Kiow and Novogorod the writings of the fathers were translated into the Sclavonic idiom; and three hundred noble youths were invited or compelled to attend the lessons of the college of Jaroslaus. It should appear that Russia might have derived an early and rapid improvement from her peculiar connection with the church and state of Constantinople, which in that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging to an hasty decline: after the fall of Kiow the navigation of the Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and Moscow were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of Tartar servitude.81 The Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms, which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed, it is true, to the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal claims of the popes; 82 but they were united, in language and religious worship, with each other and with Rome; they imbibed the free and generous spirit of the European republic, and gradually shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western world. 80 Listen to the exultations of Adam of Bremen (A.D. 1080), of which the substance is agreeable to truth: Ecce illa ferocissima Danorum, &c., natio.... jamdudum novit in Dei laudibus Alleluia resonare. Ecce populus ille piraticus.. suis nunc finibus contentus est. . . . . Ecce patria horribilis semper inaccessa propter cultum idolorum prædicatores veritatis ubique certatim admittit, &c. &c. (de Sitû Daniæ, &c., p. 40, 41, edit. Elzevir [c. 251, p. 161, ed. Maderi]: a curious and original prospect of the north of Europe, and the introduction of Christianity). .... The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which was ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of empire in the xivth century. See the 1st and 2nd volumes of Levêque's History, and Mr. Coxe's Travels into the North, tom. i. p. 241, &c. 62 The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the reverential expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam, &c., which were most rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and the Hungarian Catholics are distressed between the sanctity of the pope and the independence of the crown (Katona, Hist. Critica, tom. i. p. 20-25; tom. ii. p. 304, 346, 360, &c.). CHAPTER LVI. THE SARACENS, FRANKS, AND GREEKS, IN ITALY. FIRST ADVENTURES AND Conflict of Latins, and Greeks, in Italy, THE three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of Italy.1 the Saracens, The southern provinces, which now compose the kingdom of Naples, were subject, for the most part, to the Lombard A.D. 10-1017. dukes and princes of Beneventum 2-so powerful in war, that they checked for a moment the genius of Charlemagne-so liberal in peace, that they maintained in their capital an academy of thirty-two philosophers and grammarians. The division of this flourishing state produced the rival principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua; and the thoughtless ambition or revenge of the competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of their common inheritance. During a calamitous period of two hundred years Italy was exposed to a repetition of wounds, which the invaders were not capable of healing by the union and tranquillity of a perfect conquest. Their frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of Palermo, and were entertained with too much indulgence by the Christians of Naples: the more formidable fleets were prepared on the African coast; and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes tempted to assist or oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In the revolution 1 For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth centuries I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books of Sigonius de Regno Italia (in the second volume of his works, Milan, 1732); the Annals of Baronius, with the Criticism of Pagi; the viith and viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli of Giannone; the viith and viiith volumes (the octavo edition) of the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, and the 2nd volume of the Abrégé Chronologique of M. de St. Marc, a work which, under a superficial title, contains much genuine learning and industry. But my longaccustomed reader will give me credit for saying that I myself have ascended to the fountain-head as often as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and that I have diligently turned over the originals in the first volumes of Muratori's great collection of the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. 2 Camillo Pellegrino, a learned Capuan of the last century, has illustrated the history of the duchy of Beneventum, in his two books, Historia Principum LongoGardorum, in the Scriptores of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 221-345, and tom. v. p. 159-245. Conquest of A.D. 871. of human events a new ambuscade was concealed in the Caudine forks, the fields of Cannæ were bedewed a second time with the blood of the Africans, and the sovereign of Rome again attacked or defended the walls of Capua and Tarentum. A colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands the entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations provoked the resentment and conciliated the union of the two emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the Macedonian, the first of his race, and Lewis the great-grandson of Charlemagne ;3 and each party supplied the deficiencies of his associate. It would have been imprudent in the Byzantine monarch to transport his stationary troops of Asia to an Italian campaign; and the Latin arms would have been insufficient if his superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the Gulf. The fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks, and by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency Bari, of Lewis, who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East and West; but their recent amity was soon embittered by the mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. The Greeks assumed as their own the merit of the conquest and the pomp of the triumph, extolled the greatness of their powers, and affected to deride the intemperance and sloth of the handful of barbarians who appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince. His reply is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: "We confess the mag"nitude of your preparations," says the great-grandson of Charlemagne. "Your armies were indeed as numerous as a cloud of "summer locusts, who darken the day, flap their wings, and, after a "short flight, tumble weary and breathless to the ground. Like "them, ye sunk after a feeble effort; ye were vanquished by your "own cowardice, and withdrew from the scene of action to injure "and despoil our Christian subjects of the Sclavonian coast. We "were few in number, and why were we few? because, after a tedious "expectation of your arrival, I had dismissed my host, and retained "only a chosen band of warriors to continue the blockade of the city. "If they indulged their hospitable feasts in the face of danger and "death, did these feasts abate the vigour of their enterprise? Is it "by your fasting that the walls of Bari have been overturned? Did "not these valiant Franks, diminished as they were by languor and fatigue, intercept and vanquish the three most powerful emirs of "the Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall of the 66 3 See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, 1. ii. c. xi. [tom. iii. p. 62, ed. Bonn] in Vit. Basil. c. 55, p. 181. VOL. VII. H "city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be delivered; and, if we command the sea, the island of Sicily may be “rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother" (a name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek), "accelerate your naval suc"cours, respect your allies, and distrust your flatterers." 4 New pro Greeks in Italy, A.D. 890. These lofty hopes were soon extinguished by the death of Lewis, and the decay of the Carlovingian house; and whoever vince of the might deserve the honour, the Greek emperors, Basil and his son Leo, secured the advantage, of the reduction of Bari. The Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from Mount Garganus to the bay of Salerno leaves the far greater part of the kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire. Beyond that line the dukes or republics of Amalfi and Naples, who had never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in the neighbourhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures of Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin world, and too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The city of Bari rose to dignity and wealth as the metropolis of the new theme or province of Lombardy; the title of patrician, and afterwards the singular name of Catapan, was assigned to the supreme governor; and the policy both of the church and state was modelled in exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople. As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy, their efforts were feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or eluded the forces of Germany which descended from the Alps under the Imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of those Saxon princes was compelled to re 7 6 The original epistle of the emperor Lewis II. to the emperor Basil, a curious record of the age, was first published by Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 871, No. 51-71), from the Vatican MS. of Erchempert, or rather of the anonymous historian of Salerno. 5 See an excellent Dissertation de Republicâ Amalphitanâ, in the Appendix (p. 1-42) of Henry Brenckmann's Historia Pandectarum (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.). 6 Your master, says Nicephorus, has given aid and protection principibus Capuano et Beneventano, servis meis, quos oppugnare dispono..... Nova (potius nota) res est quòd eorum patres et avi nostro Imperio tributa dederunt (Liutprand, in Legat. p. 484). Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script. Rer. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this change in the style of the anonymous Chronicle. On the rational ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria. 7 See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange (Karstava, catapanus), and his notes on the Alexias (p. 275). Against the contemporary notion, which derives it from Karà av, juxta omne, he treats it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc has accurately observed (Abrégé Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924) that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy. |