The intellectual Condition of Christendom contrasted with that of
Arabian Spain.
Diffusion of Arabian intellectual Influences through France and
Sicily.—Example of Saracen Science in Alhazen, and of Philosophy in
Algazzali.—Innocent III. prepares to combat these
Influences.—Results to Western Europe of the Sack of Constantinople
by the Catholics.
The spread of Mohammedan light Literature is followed by Heresy.—The
crushing of Heresy in the South of France by armed Force.—The
Inquisition, mendicant Orders, auricular Confession, and Casuistry.
The rising Sentiment is embodied in Frederick II. in Sicily.—His
Conflict with and Overthrow by the Pope.—Spread of Mutiny among the
mendicant Orders.
The pressure from the West upon Rome. A [27]pressure upon the Italian system had meantime been arising in the West.
It was due to the presence of the Arabs in Spain. It is necessary,
therefore, to relate the circumstances of their invasion and conquest of
that country, and to compare their social and intellectual condition with
the contemporary state of Christendom.
Barbarism of Europe.From the barbarism of the native people of Europe, who could scarcely be
said to have emerged from the savage state, unclean in person, benighted
in mind, inhabiting huts in which it was a mark of wealth if there were
bulrushes on the floor and straw mats against the wall; miserably fed on
beans, vetches, roots, and even the bark of trees; clad in garments of
untanned skin, or at the best of leather—perennial in durability, but
not conducive to personal purity—a state in which the pomp of [28] royalty
was sufficiently and satisfactorily manifested in the equipage of the
sovereign, an ox-cart, drawn by not less than two yokes of cattle,
quickened in their movements by the goads of pedestrian serfs, whose legs
were wrapped in wisps of straw; from a people, devout believers in all
the wild fictions of shrine-miracles and preposterous relics; from the
degradation of a base theology, and from the disputes of ambitious
ecclesiastics for power, it is pleasant to turn to the south-west corner
of the continent, where, under auspices of a very different kind, the
irradiations of light were to break forth. The crescent in the West was
soon to pass eastward to its full.
But I must retrace my steps through four centuries, and resume the
description of the Arabian movement after the subjugation of Africa, as
related in the former volume, Chapter XI.
Arab invasion of Spain. Those were the circumstances of the Arab conquest of Spain. In that
country the Arian Creed had been supplanted by the orthodox, and the
customary persecutions had set in. From the time of the Emperor Hadrian,
who had transported 50,000 Jewish families into Spain, that race had
greatly increased, and, as might be expected, had received no mercy at
the hands of the orthodox. Ninety thousand individuals had recently
suffered compulsory baptism, and so had been brought under the atrocious
Catholic law that whoever has been baptized shall be compelled to
continue the observances of the Church. The Gothic monarchy was elective,
and Roderic had succeeded to the throne, to the prejudice of the heirs of
his predecessor. Though a very brave soldier, he was a luxurious and
licentious man. It was the custom of the Goths to send their children to
Toledo to be educated, and, under these circumstances, a young girl of
extraordinary beauty, the daughter of Count Julian, governor of Ceuta in
Africa, was residing there. King Roderic fell passionately in love with
her, and, being unable to overcome her virtuous resolution by persuasion,
resorted to violence. The girl found means to inform her father of what
had occurred. "By the living God!" exclaimed the count, in a paroxysm of
rage, "I will be revenged." But, dissembling his wrath, he crossed over
into Spain, had [29] an understanding with Oppas, the Archbishop of Toledo,
and other disaffected ecclesiastics, and, under specious pretences,
lulled the suspicions of Roderic, and brought his daughter away. And now
he opened communications with the Emir Musa, prevailing upon him to
attempt the conquest of the country, and offering that he himself would
take the lead. The conditions were settled between them, and the consent
of the khalif to the expedition obtained.
Its conquest.
Tarik, a lieutenant of the
emir, was sent across the Straits with the van of the army. He landed on
the rock called, in memory of his name, Gibraltar, April, A.D. 711. In
the battle that ensued, a part of Roderic's troops, together with the
Archbishop of Toledo, consummated their treasonable compact, and deserted
to the Arabs; the rest were panic-stricken. In the rout, Roderic himself
was drowned in the waters of the Guadalquivir.
Tarik now proceeded rapidly northward, and was soon joined by his
superior, the Emir Musa, who was not, perhaps, without jealousy at his
success. As the Arab historians say, the Almighty delivered the idolators
into their hand, and gave them one victory after another. As the towns
successively fell, they left them in charge of the Jews, to whose revenge
the conquest was largely due, and who could be thoroughly trusted; nor
did they pause in their march until they had passed the French frontier
and reached the Rhone. It was the intention of Musa to cross the European
continent to Constantinople, subjugating the Frank, German, and Italian
barbarians by the way. At this time it seemed impossible that France
could escape the fate of Spain; and if she fell, the threat of Musa would
inevitably have come to pass, that he would preach the Unity of God in
the Vatican. But a quarrel had arisen between him and Tarik, who had been
imprisoned and even scourged. The friends of the latter, however, did not
fail him at the court of Damascus. An envoy from the Khalif Alwalid
appeared, ordering Musa to desist from his enterprise, to return to
Syria, and exonerate himself of the things laid to his charge. But Musa
bribed the envoy to let him advance. Hereupon the angry khalif dispatched
a second messenger, who, in face of the Moslems and Christians,
audaciously arrested him, at the head of [30] his troops, by the bridle of
his horse. The conqueror of Spain was compelled to return. He was cast
into prison, fined 200,000 pieces of gold, publicly whipped, and his life
with difficulty spared. As is related of Belisarius, Musa was driven as a
beggar to solicit charity, and the Saracen conqueror of Spain ended his
days in grief and absolute want.
Arrest of Mohammedanism in Western Europe.The dissensions among the Arabs, far more than the sword of Charles
Martel, prevented the Mohammedanization of France. Their historians admit
the great check received at the battle of Tours, in which Abderrahman was
killed; they call that field the Place of the Martyrs; but their accounts
by no means correspond to the relations of the Christian authors, who
affirm that 375,000 Mohammedans fell, and only 1500 Christians. The
defeat was not so disastrous but that in a few months they were able to
resume their advance, and their progress was arrested only by renewed
dissensions among themselves—dissensions not alone among the leaders in
Spain, but also more serious ones of aspirants for the khalifate in Asia.
On the overthrow of the Ommiade house, Abderrahman, one of that family,
escaped to Spain, which repaid the patronage of its conquest by
acknowledging him as its sovereign. He made Cordova the seat of his
government. Neither he nor his immediate successors took any other title
than that of Emir, out of respect to the khalif, who resided at Bagdad,
the metropolis of Islam, though they maintained a rivalry with him in the
patronage of letters and science. Abderrahman himself strengthened his
power by an alliance with Charlemagne.
Civilization and splendour of the Spanish Arabs.Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain when they commenced
a brilliant career. Adopting what had now become the established policy
of the Commanders of the Faithful in Asia, the Emirs of Cordova
distinguished themselves as patrons of learning, and set an example of
refinement strongly contrasting with the condition of the native European
princes. Cordova, under their administration, at its highest point of
prosperity, boasted of more than two hundred thousand houses, and more
than a million of inhabitants. After sunset, a man might walk [31] through it
in a straight line for ten miles by the light of the public lamps. Seven
hundred years after this time there was not so much as one public lamp in
London. Its streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently,
whoever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped up to his
ankles in mud. Other cities, as Granada, Seville, Toledo, considered
themselves rivals of Cordova. The palaces of the khalifs were
magnificently decorated. Those sovereigns might well look down with
supercilious contempt on the dwellings of the rulers of Germany, France,
and England, which were scarcely better than stables—chimneyless,
windowless, and with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, like the
wigwams of certain Indians. The Spanish Mohammedans had brought with them
all the luxuries and prodigalities of Asia.
Their palaces and gardens.
Their residences stood forth
against the clear blue sky, or were embosomed in woods. They had polished
marble balconies, overhanging orange-gardens; courts with cascades of
water; shady retreats provocative of slumber in the heat of the day;
retiring-rooms vaulted with stained glass, speckled with gold, over which
streams of water were made to gush; the floors and walls were of
exquisite mosaic. Here, a fountain of quicksilver shot up in a glistening
spray, the glittering particles falling with a tranquil sound like fairy
bells; there, apartments into which cool air was drawn from the
flower-gardens, in summer, by means of ventilating towers, and in winter
through earthen pipes, or caleducts, imbedded in the walls—the
hypocaust, in the vaults below, breathing forth volumes of warm and
perfumed air through these hidden passages. The walls were not covered
with wainscot, but adorned with arabesques, and paintings of agricultural
scenes and views of Paradise. From the ceilings, corniced with fretted
gold, great chandeliers hung, one of which, it is said, was so large that
it contained 1804 lamps. Clusters of frail marble columns surprised the
beholder with the vast weights they bore. In the boudoirs of the sultanas
they were sometimes of verd antique, and incrusted with lapis lazuli. The
furniture was of sandal and citron wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl,
ivory, silver, or relieved with gold and precious malachite. In orderly
confusion were arranged vases of rock crystal, [32] Chinese porcelains, and
tables of exquisite mosaic. The winter apartments were hung with rich
tapestry; the floors were covered with embroidered Persian carpets.
Pillows and couches, of elegant forms, were scattered about the rooms,
perfumed with frankincense. It was the intention of the Saracen
architect, by excluding the view of the external landscape, to
concentrate attention on his work; and since the representation of the
human form was religiously forbidden, and that source of decoration
denied, his imagination ran riot with the complicated arabesques he
introduced, and sought every opportunity of replacing the prohibited
works of art by the trophies and rarities of the garden. For this reason,
the Arabs never produced artists; religion turned them from the
beautiful, and made them soldiers, philosophers, and men of affairs.
Splendid flowers and rare exotics ornamented the courtyards and even the
inner chambers. Great care was taken to make due provision for the
cleanliness, occupation, and amusement of the inmates. Through pipes of
metal, water, both warm and cold, to suit the season of the year, ran
into baths of marble; in niches, where the current of air could be
artificially directed, hung dripping alcarazzas.
Libraries and works of taste.There were
whispering-galleries for the amusement of the women; labyrinths and
marble play-courts for the children; for the master himself, grand
libraries. The Khalif Alhakem's was so large that the catalogue alone
filled forty volumes. He had also apartments for the transcribing,
binding, and ornamenting of books. A taste for caligraphy and the
possession of splendidly-illuminated manuscripts seems to have
anticipated in the khalifs, both of Asia and Spain, the taste for
statuary and paintings among the later popes of Rome.
The court of Abderrahman III.Such were the palace and gardens of Zehra, in which Abderrahman III.
honoured his favourite sultana. The edifice had 1200 columns of Greek,
Italian, Spanish, and African marble. Its hall of audience was incrusted
with gold and pearls. Through the long corridors of its seraglio black
eunuchs silently glided. The ladies of the harem, both wives and
concubines, were the most beautiful that could be found. To that
establishment alone 6300 persons were attached, The [33] body-guard of the
sovereign was composed of 12,000 horsemen, whose cimeters and belts were
studded with gold. This was that Abderrahman who, after a glorious reign
of fifty years, sat down to count the number of days of unalloyed
happiness he had experienced, and could only enumerate fourteen. "Oh
man!" exclaimed the plaintive khalif, "put not thy trust in this present
world."
Social habits of the Moors.No nation has ever excelled the Spanish Arabs in the beauty and
costliness of their pleasure-gardens. To them we owe the introduction of
very many of our most valuable cultivated fruits, such as the peach.
Retaining the love of their ancestors for the cooling effect of water in
a hot climate, they spared no pains in the superfluity of fountains,
hydraulic works, and artificial lakes in which fish were raised for the
table. Into such a lake, attached to the palace of Cordova, many loaves
were cast each day to feed the fish. There were also menageries of
foreign animals; aviaries of rare birds; manufactories in which skilled
workmen, obtained from foreign countries, displayed their art in textures
of silk, cotton, linen, and all the miracles of the loom; in jewelry and
filigree-work, with which they ministered to the female pride of the
sultanas and concubines. Under the shade of cypresses cascades
disappeared; among flowering shrubs there were winding walks, bowers of
roses, seats cut out of the rock, and crypt-like grottoes hewn in the
living stone. Nowhere was ornamental gardening better understood; for not
only did the artist try to please the eye as it wandered over the
pleasant gradation of vegetable colour and form—he also boasted his
success in the gratification of the sense of smell by the studied
succession of perfumes from beds of flowers.
Their domestic life.To these Saracens we are indebted for many of our personal comforts.
Religiously cleanly, it was not possible for them to clothe themselves
according to the fashion of the natives of Europe, in a garment unchanged
till it dropped to pieces of itself, a loathsome mass of vermin, stench,
and rags. No Arab who had been a minister of state, or the associate or
antagonist of a sovereign, would have offered such a spectacle as the
corpse of Thomas à Becket when his haircloth shirt was removed. They
taught us the use of the [34] often-changed and often-washed under-garment of
linen or cotton, which still passes among ladies under its old Arabic
name. But to cleanliness they were not unwilling to add ornament.
Especially among women of the higher classes was the love of finery a
passion. Their outer garments were often of silk, embroidered and
decorated with gems and woven gold. So fond were the Moorish women of gay
colours and the lustre of chrysolites, hyacinths, emeralds, and
sapphires, that it was quaintly said that the interior of any public
building in which they were permitted to appear looked like a
flower-meadow in the spring besprinkled with rain.
They cultivate literature, music, In the midst of all this luxury, which cannot be regarded by the
historian with disdain, since in the end it produced a most important
result in the south of France, the Spanish khalifs, emulating the example
of their Asiatic compeers, and in this strongly contrasting with the
popes of Rome, were not only the patrons, but the personal cultivators of
all the branches of human learning. One of them was himself the author of
a work on polite literature in not less than fifty volumes; another wrote
a treatise on algebra. When Zaryab the musician came from the East to
Spain, the Khalif Abderrahman rode forth to meet him in honour. The
College of Music in Cordova was sustained by ample government patronage,
and produced many illustrious professors.
but disapprove of European mythology.The Arabs never translated into their own tongue the great Greek poets,
though they so sedulously collected and translated the Greek
philosophers. Their religious sentiments and sedate character caused them
to abominate the lewdness of our classical mythology, and to denounce
indignantly any connexion between the licentious, impure Olympian Jove
and the Most High God as an insufferable and unpardonable blasphemy.
Haroun al Raschid had gratified his curiosity by causing Homer to be
translated into Syriac, but he did not adventure on rendering the great
epics into Arabic. Notwithstanding this aversion to our graceful but not
unobjectionable ancient poetry, among them originated the Tensons, or
poetic disputations, carried afterward to perfection among the
Troubadours; from them, also, the Provençals learned to employ jongleurs.
Across the Pyrenees, [35] literary, philosophical, and military adventurers
were perpetually passing; and thus the luxury, the taste, and above all,
the chivalrous gallantry and elegant courtesies of Moorish society found
their way from Granada and Cordova to Provence and Languedoc.
The south of France contracts their tastes.
The French,
and German, and English nobles imbibed the Arab admiration of the horse;
they learned to pride themselves on skilful riding. Hunting and falconry
became their fashionable pastimes; they tried to emulate that Arab skill
which had produced the celebrated breed of Andalusian horses. It was a
scene of grandeur and gallantry; the pastimes were tilts and tournaments.
The refined society of Cordova prided itself in its politeness. A gay
contagion spread from the beautiful Moorish miscreants to their sisters
beyond the mountains; the south of France was full of the witcheries of
female fascinations, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin.
Light literature spreads into Sicily and Italy.
Even in
Italy and Sicily the love-song became the favourite composition; and out
of these genial but not orthodox beginnings the polite literature of
modern Europe arose. The pleasant epidemic spread by degrees along every
hillside and valley. In monasteries, voices that had vowed celibacy might
be heard carolling stanzas of which St. Jerome would hardly have
approved; there was many a juicy abbot, who could troll forth in jocund
strains, like those of the merry sinners of Malaga and Xeres, the charms
of women and wine, though one was forbidden to the Moslem and one to the
monk. The sedate greybeards of Cordova had already applied to the supreme
judge to have the songs of the Spanish Jew, Abraham Ibn Sahal,
prohibited; for there was not a youth, nor woman, nor child in the city
who could not repeat them by heart. Their immoral tendency was a public
scandal. The light gaiety of Spain was reflected in the coarser habits of
the northern countries. It was an archdeacon of Oxford who some time
afterward sang,
"Mihi sit propositum in tabernâ mori,
Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,
Ut dicant, cum venerint angelorum chori;
'Deus sit propitius huic potatori,'" etc.
[36] Even as early as the tenth century, persons having a taste for learning
and for elegant amenities found their way into Spain from all adjoining
countries; a practice in subsequent years still more indulged in, when it
became illustrated by the brilliant success of Gerbert, who, as we have
seen, passed from the Infidel University of Cordova to the papacy of
Rome.
The Arabian school system.The khalifs of the West carried out the precepts of Ali, the fourth
successor of Mohammed, in the patronage of literature. They established
libraries in all their chief towns; it is said that not fewer than
seventy were in existence. To every mosque was attached a public school,
in which the children of the poor were taught to read and write, and
instructed in the precepts of the Koran. For those in easier
circumstances there were academies, usually arranged in twenty-five or
thirty apartments, each calculated for accommodating four students; the
academy being presided over by a rector. In Cordova, Granada, and other
great cities, there were universities frequently under the
superintendence of Jews; the Mohammedan maxim being that the real
learning of a man is of more public importance than any particular
religious opinions he may entertain. In this they followed the example of
the Asiatic khalif, Haroun al Raschid, who actually conferred the
superintendence of his schools on John Masué, a Nestorian Christian. The
Mohammedan liberality was in striking contrast with the intolerance of
Europe. Indeed, it may be doubted whether at this time any European
nation is sufficiently advanced to follow such an example. In the
universities some of the professors of polite literature gave lectures on
Arabic classical works; others taught rhetoric or composition, or
mathematics, or astronomy. From these institutions many of the practices
observed in our colleges were derived. They held Commencements, at which
poems were read and orations delivered in presence of the public. They
had also, in addition to these schools of general learning, professional
ones, particularly for medicine.
Cultivation of grammar, rhetoric, composition. With a pride perhaps not altogether inexcusable, the Arabians boasted of
their language as being the [37] most perfect spoken by man. Mohammed
himself, when challenged to produce a miracle in proof of the
authenticity of his mission, uniformly pointed to the composition of the
Koran, its unapproachable excellence vindicating its inspiration. The
orthodox Moslems—the Moslems are those who are submissively resigned to
the Divine will—are wont to assert that every page of that book is
indeed a conspicuous miracle. It is not then surprising that, in the
Arabian schools, great attention was paid to the study of language, and
that so many celebrated grammarians were produced. By these scholars,
dictionaries, similar to those now in use, were composed; their
copiousness is indicated by the circumstance that one of them consisted
of sixty volumes, the definition of each word being illustrated or
sustained by quotations from Arab authors of acknowledged repute. They
had also lexicons of Greek, Latin, Hebrew; and cyclopedias such as the
Historical Dictionary of Sciences of Mohammed Ibn Abdallah, of Granada.
In their highest civilization and luxury they did not forget the
amusements of their forefathers—listening to the tale-teller, who never
failed to obtain an audience in the midst of Arab tents. Around the
evening fires in Spain the wandering literati exercised their wonderful
powers of Oriental invention, edifying the eager listeners by such
narrations as those that have descended to us in the Arabian Nights'
Entertainments. The more sober and higher efforts of the educated were,
of course, directed to pulpit eloquence, in conformity with the example
of all the great Oriental khalifs, and sanctified by the practice of the
Prophet himself.
Defects of their literature.
Their poetical productions embraced all the modern minor
forms—satires, odes, elegies, etc.; but they never produced any work in
the higher walks of poesy, no epic, no tragedy. Perhaps this was due to
their false fashion of valuing the mechanical execution of a work. They
were the authors and introducers of rhyme; and such was the luxuriance
and abundance of their language, that, in some of their longest poems,
the same rhyme is said to have been used alternately from the beginning
to the end. Where such mechanical triumphs were popularly prized, it may
be supposed that the conception and spirit would be indifferent. Even [38]
among the Spanish women there were not a few who, like Velada, Ayesha,
Labana, Algasania, achieved reputation in these compositions; and some of
them were daughters of khalifs. And this is the more interesting to us,
since it was from the Provençal poetry, the direct descendant of these
efforts, that European literature arose. Sonnets and romances at last
displaced the grimly-orthodox productions of the wearisome and ignorant
fathers of the Church.
If fiction was prized among the Spanish Arabs, history was held in not
less esteem. Every khalif had his own historian. The instincts of the
race are perpetually peeping out; not only were there historians of the
Commanders of the Faithful, but also of celebrated horses and illustrious
camels. In connexion with history, statistics were cultivated; this
having been, it may be said, a necessary study, from the first enforced
on the Saracen officers in their assessment of tribute on conquered
misbelievers, and subsequently continued as an object of taste.
Their taste for practical science.
It was,
doubtless, a similar necessity, arising from their position, that stamped
such a remarkably practical aspect on the science of the Arabs generally.
Many of their learned men were travellers and voyagers, constantly moving
about for the acquisition or diffusion of knowledge, their acquirements
being a passport to them wherever they went, and a sufficient
introduction to any of the African or Asiatic courts. They were thus
continually brought in contact with men of affairs, soldiers of fortune,
statesmen, and became imbued with much of their practical spirit; and
hence the singularly romantic character which the biographies of many of
these men display, wonderful turns of prosperity, violent deaths. The
scope of their literary labours offers a subject well worthy of
meditation; it contrasts with the contemporary ignorance of Europe. Some
wrote on chronology; some on numismatics; some, now that military
eloquence had become objectless, wrote on pulpit oratory; some on
agriculture and its allied branches, as the art of irrigation. Not one of
the purely mathematical, or mixed, or practical sciences was omitted.
Their continued inclination to the study of medicine.
[39] Out of a list too long for detailed quotation, I may recall a few names.
Assamh, who wrote on topography and statistics, a brave soldier, who was
killed in the invasion of France, A.D. 720; Avicenna, the great physician
and philosopher, who died A.D. 1037; Averroes, of Cordova, the chief
commentator on Aristotle, A.D. 1198. It was his intention to unite the
doctrines of Aristotle with those of the Koran. To him is imputed the
discovery of spots upon the sun. The leading idea of his philosophy was
the numerical unity of the souls of mankind, though parted among millions
of living individuals. He died at Morocco. Abu Othman wrote on zoology;
Alberuni, on gems—he had travelled to India to procure information;
Rhazes, Al Abbas, and Al Beithar, on botany—the latter had been in all
parts of the world for the purpose of obtaining specimens. Ebn Zoar,
better known as Avenzoar, may be looked upon as the authority in Moorish
pharmacy. Pharmacopœias were published by the schools, improvements on
the old ones of the Nestorians: to them may be traced the introduction of
many Arabic words, such as syrup, julep, elixir, still used among
apothecaries.
Relics of the Arab vocabulary.
A competent scholar might furnish not only an interesting,
but valuable book, founded on the remaining relics of the Arab
vocabulary; for, in whatever direction we may look, we meet, in the
various pursuits of peace and war, of letters and of science, Saracenic
vestiges. Our dictionaries tell us that such is the origin of admiral,
alchemy, alcohol, algebra, chemise, cotton, and hundreds of other words.
The Saracens commenced the application of chemistry, both to the theory
and practice of medicine, in the explanation of the functions of the
human body and in the cure of its diseases.
Their medicine and surgery.
Nor was their surgery behind
their medicine. Albucasis, of Cordova, shrinks not from the performance
of the most formidable operations in his own and in the obstetrical art;
the actual cautery and the knife are used without hesitation. He has left
us ample descriptions of the surgical instruments then employed; and from
him we learn that, in operations on females in which considerations of
delicacy intervened, the services of [40] properly instructed women were
secured. How different was all this from the state of things in Europe;
the Christian peasant, fever-stricken or overtaken by accident, hied to
the nearest saint-shrine and expected a miracle; the Spanish Moor relied
on the prescription or lancet of his physician, or the bandage and knife
of his surgeon.
Liberality of the Asiatic khalifs.In mathematics the Arabians acknowledged their indebtedness to two
sources, Greek and Indian, but they greatly improved upon both. The
Asiatic khalifs had made exertions to procure translations of Euclid,
Apollonius, Archimedes, and other Greek geometers. Almaimon, in a letter
to the Emperor Theophilus, expressed his desire to visit Constantinople
if his public duties would have permitted. He requests of him to allow
Leo the mathematician to come to Bagdad to impart to him a portion of his
learning, pledging his word that he would restore him quickly and safely
again. "Do not," says the high-minded khalif, "let diversity of religion
or of country cause you to refuse my request. Do what friendship would
concede to a friend. In return, I offer you a hundred weight of gold, a
perpetual alliance and peace." True to the instincts of his race and the
traditions of his city, the Byzantine sourly and insolently refused the
request, saying that "the learning which had illustrated the Roman name
should never be imparted to a barbarian."
Their great improvements in arithmetic.From the Hindus the Arabs learned arithmetic, especially that valuable
invention termed by us the Arabic numerals, but honourably ascribed by
them to its proper source, under the designation of "Indian numerals."
They also entitled their treatises on the subject "Systems of Indian
Arithmetic." This admirable notation by nine digits and cipher occasioned
a complete revolution in arithmetical computations. As in the case of so
many other things, the Arab impress is upon it; our word cipher, and its
derivatives, ciphering, etc., recall the Arabic word tsaphara or ciphra,
the name for the 0, and meaning that which is blank or void. Mohammed Ben
Musa, said to be the earliest of the Saracen authors on algebra, and who
made the great improvement of substituting sines for chords in
trigonometry, wrote [41] also on this Indian system. He lived at the end of
the ninth century; before the end of the tenth it was in common use among
the African and Spanish mathematicians. Ebn Junis, A.D. 1008, used it in
his astronomical works. From Spain it passed into Italy, its singular
advantage in commercial computation causing it to be eagerly adopted in
the great trading cities. We still use the word algorithm in reference to
calculations. The study of algebra was intently cultivated among the
Arabs, who gave it the name it bears. Ben Musa, just referred to, was the
inventor of the common method of solving quadratic equations.
Their astronomical discoveries.
In the
application of mathematics to astronomy and physics they had been long
distinguished. Almaimon had determined with considerable accuracy the
obliquity of the ecliptic. His result, with those of some other Saracen
astronomers, is as follows:
| A.D. | 830. Almaimon | 23° 35' 52" |
| " | 879. Albategnius,
at Aracte | 23° 35' 00 |
| " | 987. Aboul Wefa,
at Bagdad | 23° 35' 00 |
| " | 995. Aboul Rihau,
with a quadrant
of 25 feet radius | 23° 35' 00 |
| " | 1080. Arzachael | 23° 34' 00 |
Almaimon had also ascertained the size of the earth from the measurement
of a degree on the shore of the Red Sea—an operation implying true ideas
of its form, and in singular contrast with the doctrine of Constantinople
and Rome. While the latter was asserting, in all its absurdity, the
flatness of the earth, the Spanish Moors were teaching geography in their
common schools from globes. In Africa, there was still preserved, with
almost religious reverence, in the library at Cairo, one of brass,
reputed to have belonged to the great astronomer Ptolemy. Al Idrisi made
one of silver for Roger II., of Sicily; and Gerbert used one which he had
brought from Cordova in the school he established at Rheims. It cost a
struggle of several centuries, illustrated by some martyrdoms, before the
dictum of Lactantius and Augustine could be overthrown. Among problems of
interest that were solved may be mentioned the determination of the
length of the year by Albategnius and Thebit Ben Corrah; and [42] increased
accuracy was given to the correction of astronomical observations by
Alhazen's great discovery of atmospheric refraction. Among the
astronomers, some composed tables; some wrote on the measure of time;
some on the improvement of clocks, for which purpose they were the first
to apply the pendulum; some on instruments, as the astrolabe. The
introduction of astronomy into Christian Europe has been attributed to
the translation of the works of Mohammed Fargani. In Europe, also, the
Arabs were the first to build observatories; the Giralda, or tower of
Seville, was erected under the superintendence of Geber, the
mathematician, A.D. 1196, for that purpose. Its fate was not a little
characteristic. After the expulsion of the Moors it was turned into a
belfry, the Spaniards not knowing what else to do with it.
Europe tries to hide its obligations to them.I have to deplore the systematic manner in which the literature of Europe
has contrived to put out of sight our scientific obligations to the
Mohammedans. Surely they cannot be much longer hidden. Injustice founded
on religious rancour and national conceit cannot be perpetuated for ever.
What should the modern astronomer say when, remembering the contemporary
barbarism of Europe, he finds the Arab Abul Hassan speaking of tubes, to
the extremities of which ocular and object diopters, perhaps sights, were
attached, as used at Meragha? what when he reads of the attempts of
Abderrahman Sufi at improving the photometry of the stars? Are the
astronomical tables of Ebn Junis (A.D. 1008), called the Hakemite tables,
or the Ilkanic tables of Nasser Eddin Tasi, constructed at the great
observatory just mentioned, Meragha, near Tauris, A.D. 1259, or the
measurement of time by pendulum oscillations, and the methods of
correcting astronomical tables by systematic observations—are such
things worthless indications of the mental state? The Arab has left his
intellectual impress on Europe, as, before long, Christendom will have to
confess; he has indelibly written it on the heavens, as any one may see
who reads the names of the stars on a common celestial globe.
Improvements in the arts of life.Our obligations to the Spanish Moors in the arts of life are even more
marked than in the higher [43] branches of science, perhaps only because our
ancestors were better prepared to take advantage of things connected with
daily affairs. They set an example of skilful agriculture, the practice
of which was regulated by a code of laws. Not only did they attend to the
cultivation of plants, introducing very many new ones, they likewise paid
great attention to the breeding of cattle, especially the sheep and
horse. To them we owe the introduction of the great products, rice,
sugar, cotton, and also, as we have previously observed, nearly all the
fine garden and orchard fruits, together with many less important plants,
as spinach and saffron. To them Spain owes the culture of silk; they gave
to Xeres and Malaga their celebrity for wine. They introduced the
Egyptian system of irrigation by flood-gates, wheels, and pumps. They
also promoted many important branches of industry; improved the
manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, iron, steel; the Toledo
sword-blades were everywhere prized for their temper. The Arabs, on their
expulsion from Spain, carried the manufacture of a kind of leather, in
which they were acknowledged to excel, to Morocco, from which country the
leather itself has now taken its name. They also introduced inventions of
a more ominous kind—gunpowder and artillery. The cannon they used
appeared to have been made of wrought iron. But perhaps they more than
compensated for these evil contrivances by the introduction of the
mariner's compass.
Their commerce.The mention of the mariner's compass might lead us correctly to infer
that the Spanish Arabs were interested in commercial pursuits, a
conclusion to which we should also come when we consider the revenues of
some of their khalifs. That of Abderrahman III. is stated at five and a
half million sterling—a vast sum if considered by its modern equivalent,
and far more than could possibly be raised by taxes on the produce of the
soil. It probably exceeded the entire revenue of all the sovereigns of
Christendom taken together. From Barcelona and other ports an immense
trade with the Levant was maintained, but it was mainly in the hands of
the Jews, who, from the first invasion of Spain by Musa, had ever been
the firm allies [44] and collaborators of the Arabs. Together they had
participated in the dangers of the invasion; together they had shared its
boundless success; together they had held in irreverent derision, nay,
even in contempt, the woman-worshippers and polytheistic savages beyond
the Pyrenees—as they mirthfully called those whose long-delayed
vengeance they were in the end to feel; together they were expelled.
Against such Jews as lingered behind the hideous persecutions of the
Inquisition were directed. But in the days of their prosperity they
maintained a merchant marine of more than a thousand ships. They had
factories and consuls on the Tanaïs. With Constantinople alone they
maintained a great trade; it ramified from the Black Sea and East
Mediterranean into the interior of Asia; it reached the ports of India
and China, and extended along the African coast as far as Madagascar.
Even in these commercial affairs the singular genius of the Jew and Arabs
shines forth. In the midst of the tenth century, when Europe was about in
the same condition that Caffraria is now, enlightened Moors, like Abul
Cassem, were writing treatises on the principles of trade and commerce.
As on so many other occasions, on these affairs they have left their
traces. The smallest weight they used in trade was the grain of barley,
four of which were equal to one sweet pea, called in Arabic carat. We
still use the grain as our unit of weight, and still speak of gold as
being so many carats fine.
Obligations to the Khalifs of the West.Such were the Khalifs of the West; such their splendour, their luxury,
their knowledge; such some of the obligations we are under to
them—obligations which Christian Europe, with singular insincerity, has
ever been fain to hide. The cry against the misbeliever has long outlived
the Crusades. Considering the enchanting country over which they ruled,
it was not without reason that they caused to be engraven on the public
seal, "The servant of the Merciful rests contented in the decrees of
God." What more, indeed, could Paradise give them? But, considering also
the evil end of all this happiness and pomp, this learning, liberality,
and wealth, we may well appreciate the solemn truth which these monarchs,
in their day of pride [45] and power, grandly wrote in the beautiful mosaics
on their palace walls, an ever-recurring warning to him who owes dominion
to the sword, "There is no conqueror but God."
Examination of Mohammedan science.The value of a philosophical or political system may be determined by its
fruits. On this principle I examined in Vol. I., Chapter XII., the Italian
system, estimating its religious merit from the biographies of the popes,
which afford the proper criterion. In like manner, the intellectual state
of the Mohammedan nations at successive epochs may be ascertained from
what is its proper criterion, the contemporaneous scientific
manifestation.
At the time when the Moorish influences in Spain began to exert a
pressure on the Italian system, there were several scientific writers,
fragments of whose works have descended to us. As an architect may judge
of the skill of the ancient Egyptians in his art from a study of the
Pyramids, so from these relics of Saracenic learning we may demonstrate
the intellectual state of the Mohammedan people, though much of their
work has been lost and more has been purposely destroyed.
Review of the works of Alhazen.Among such writers is Alhazen; his date was about A.D. 1100. It appears
that he resided both in Spain and Egypt, but the details of his biography
are very confused. Through his optical works, which have been translated
into Latin, he is best known to Europe. He corrects the theory of vision.
He was the first to correct the
Greek misconception as to the nature of vision, showing that the rays of
light come from external objects to the eye, and do not issue forth from
the eye, and impinge on external things, as, up to his time, had been
supposed. His explanation does not depend upon mere hypothesis or
supposition, but is plainly based upon anatomical investigation as well
as on geometrical discussion.
Determines the function of the retina.
He determines that the retina is the seat
of vision, and that impressions made by light upon it are conveyed along
the optic nerve to the brain. Though it might not be convenient, at the
time when Alhazen lived, to make such an acknowledgment, no one could
come to these [46]conclusions, nor, indeed, know anything about these facts,
unless he had been engaged in the forbidden practice of dissection.
Explains single vision.With
felicity he explains that we see single when we use both eyes, because of
the formation of the visual images on symmetrical portions of the two
retinas. To the modern physiologist the mere mention of such things is as
significant as the occurrence of an arch in the interior of the pyramid
is to the architect. But Alhazen shows that our sense of sight is by no
means a trustworthy guide, and that there are illusions arising from the
course which the rays of light may take when they suffer refraction or
reflexion. It is in the discussion of one of these physical problems that
his scientific greatness truly shines forth.
Traces the course of a ray of light through the air.
He is perfectly aware that
the atmosphere decreases in density with increase of height; and from
that consideration he shows that a ray of light, entering it obliquely,
follows a curvilinear path which is concave toward the earth; and that,
since the mind refers the position of an object to the direction in which
the ray of light from it enters the eye, the result must be an illusion
as respects the starry bodies; they appear to us, to use the Arabic term,
nearer to the zenith than they actually are, and not in their true
place.
Astronomical refraction.
We see them in the direction of the tangent to the curve of
refraction as it reaches the eye. Hence also he shows that we actually
see the stars, and the sun, and the moon before they have risen and after
they have set—a wonderful illusion. He shows that in its passage through
the air the curvature of a ray increases with the increasing density, and
that its path does not depend on vapours that chance to be present, but
on the variation of density in the medium.
The horizontal sun and moon.
To this refraction he truly
refers the shortening, in their vertical diameter, of the horizontal sun
and moon; to its variations he imputes the twinkling of the fixed stars.
The apparent increase of size of the former bodies when they are in the
horizon he refers to a mental deception, arising from the presence of
intervening terrestrial objects.
Explains the twilight.
He shows that the effect of refraction
is to shorten the duration of night and darkness by prolonging the
visibility of the sun, and considering [47] the reflecting action of the air,
he deduces that beautiful explanation of the nature of twilight—the
light that we perceive before the rising and after the setting of the
sun—which we accept at the present time as true. Determines the height of the atmosphere.
With extraordinary
acuteness, he applies the principles with which he is dealing to the
determination of the height of the atmosphere, deciding that its limit is
nearly 58 ½ miles.
All this is very grand. Shall we compare it with the contemporaneous monk
miracles and monkish philosophy of Europe? It would make a profound
impression if communicated for the first time to a scientific society in
our own age. Nor perhaps does his merit end here. If the Book of the
Balance of Wisdom, for a translation of which we are indebted to M.
Khanikoff, the Russian consul-general at Tabriz, be the production of
Alhazen, of which there seems to be internal proof, it offers us evidence
of a singular clearness in mechanical conception for which we should
scarcely have been prepared, and, if it be not his, at all events it
indisputably shows the scientific acquirements of his age.
The weight of the air.
In that book
is plainly set forth the connexion between the weight of the atmosphere
and its increasing density. The weight of the atmosphere was therefore
understood before Torricelli. This author shows that a body will weigh
differently in a rare and in a dense atmosphere; that its loss of weight
will be greater in proportion as the air is more dense.
Principles of hydrostatics.
He considers the
force with which plunged bodies will rise through heavier media in which
they are immersed, and discusses the submergence of floating bodies, as
ships upon the sea. He understands the doctrine of the centre of gravity.
Theory of the balance.
He applies it to the investigation of balances and steelyards, showing
the relations between the centre of gravity and the centre of
suspension—when those instruments will set and when they will vibrate.
He recognizes gravity as a force; asserts that it diminishes with the
distance; but falls into the mistake that the diminution is as the
distance, and not as its square.
Gravity; capillary attraction; the hydrometer.
He considers gravity as terrestrial, and
fails to perceive that it is universal—that was reserved for Newton. He
knows correctly the [48] relation between the velocities, spaces, and times
of falling bodies, and has very distinct ideas of capillary attraction.
He improves the construction of that old Alexandrian invention, the
hydrometer—the instrument which, in a letter to his fair but pagan
friend Hypatia, the good Bishop of Ptolemais, Synesius, six hundred years
previously, requests her to have made for him in Alexandria, as he wishes
to try the wines he is using, his health being a little delicate.
Tables of specific gravities.
The
determinations of the densities of bodies, as given by Alhazen, approach
very closely to our own; in the case of mercury they are even more exact
than some of those of the last century. I join, as, doubtless, all
natural philosophers will do, in the pious prayer of Alhazen, that, in
the day of judgment, the All-Merciful will take pity on the soul of
Abur-Raihân, because he was the first of the race of men to construct a
table of specific gravities; and I will ask the same for Alhazen himself,
since he was the first to trace the curvilinear path of a ray of light
through the air. Though more than seven centuries part him from our
times, the physiologists of this age may accept him as their compeer,
since he received and defended the doctrine now forcing its way, of the
progressive development of animal forms.
The theory of development of organisms.
He upheld the affirmation of
those who said that man, in his progress, passes through a definite
succession of states; not, however, "that he was once a bull, and was
then changed to an ass, and afterwards into a horse, and after that into
an ape, and finally became a man." This, he says, is only a
misrepresentation by "common people" of what is really meant. The "common
people" who withstood Alhazen have representatives among us, themselves
the only example in the Fauna of the world of that non-development which
they so loudly affirm. At the best they are only passing through some of
the earlier forms of that series of transmutations to which the devout
Mohammedan in the above quotation alludes.
The Arabians, with all this physical knowledge, do not appear to have
been in possession of the thermometer, though they knew the great
importance of temperature [49] measures, employing the areometer for that
purpose. They had detected the variation in density of liquids by heat,
but not the variation in volume. In their measures of time they were more
successful; they had several kinds of clepsydras. A balance clepsydra is
described in the work from which I am quoting.
The pendulum clock.
But it was their great
astronomer, Ebn Junis, who accomplished the most valuable of all
chronometric improvements. He first applied the pendulum to the measure
of time. Laplace, in the fifth note to his Systeme du Monde, avails
himself of the observations of this philosopher, with those of
Albategnius and other Arabians, as incontestable proof of the diminution
of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit.
Astronomical works of Ebn Junis.
He states, moreover, that the
observation of Ebn Junis of the obliquity of the ecliptic, properly
corrected for parallax and refraction, gives for the year A.D. 1000 a
result closely approaching to the theoretical. He also mentions another
observation of Ebn Junis, October 31, A.D. 1007, as of much importance in
reference to the great inequalities of Jupiter and Saturn.
The Arabic numerals.
I have already
remarked that, in the writings of this great Arabian, the Arabic numerals
and our common arithmetical processes are currently used. From Africa and
Spain they passed into Italy, finding ready acceptance among commercial
men, who recognised at once their value, and, as William of Malmesbury
says, being a wonderful relief to the "sweating calculators;" an epithet
of which the correctness will soon appear to any one who will try to do a
common multiplication or division problem by the aid of the old Roman
numerals. It is said that Gerbert—Pope Sylvester—was the first to
introduce a knowledge of them into Europe; he had learned them at the
Mohammedan university of Cordova. It is in allusion to the cipher, which
follows the 9, but which, added to any of the other digits, increases by
tenfold its power, that, in a letter to his patron, the Emperor Otho III.,
with humility he playfully but truly says, "I am like the last of
all the numbers."
Arabian philosophy.The overthrow of the Roman by the Arabic numerals foreshadowed the result
of a far more important—a political—contest between those rival names.
But, [50] before showing how the Arabian intellect pressed upon Rome, and the
convulsive struggles of desperation which Rome made to resist it, I must
for a moment consider the former under another point of view, and speak
of Saracen philosophy.
The writings of Algazzali.
And here Algazzali shall be my guide. He was born
A.D. 1058.
Let us hear him speak for himself. He is relating his attempt to detach
himself from the opinions which he had imbibed in his childhood: "I said
to myself, 'My aim is simply to know the truth of things; consequently,
it is indispensable for me to ascertain what is knowledge.' Now it was
evident to me that certain knowledge must be that which explains the
object to be known in such a manner that no doubt can remain, so that in
future all error and conjecture respecting it must be impossible.
The certitude of knowledge.
Not only would the understanding then need no efforts to be convinced of
certitude, but security against error is in such close connexion with
knowledge, that, even were an apparent proof of falsehood to be brought
forward, it would cause no doubt, because no suspicion of error would be
possible. Thus, when I have acknowledged ten to be more than three, if
any one were to say, 'On the contrary, three is more than ten, and to
prove the truth of my assertion, I will change this rod into a serpent,'
and if he were to change it, my conviction of his error would remain
unshaken. His manœuvre would only produce in me admiration for his
ability. I should not doubt my own knowledge.
"Then was I convinced that knowledge which I did not possess in this
manner, and respecting which I had not this certainty, could inspire me
with neither confidence nor assurance; and no knowledge without assurance
deserves the name of knowledge.
"Having examined the state of my own knowledge, I found it divested of
all that could be said to have these qualities, unless perceptions of the
senses and irrefragable principles were to be considered such.
Fallibility of the senses.
I then said to myself, 'Now,
having fallen into this despair, the only hope of
acquiring incontestable convictions is by the perceptions of the senses
and by necessary truths.' Their evidence seemed to me to be [51] indubitable.
I began, however, to examine the objects of sensation and speculation, to
see if they possibly could admit of doubt. Then doubts crowded upon me in
such numbers that my incertitude became complete. Whence results the
confidence I have in sensible things? The strongest of all our senses is
sight; and yet, looking at a shadow, and perceiving it to be fixed and
immovable, we judge it to be deprived of movement; nevertheless,
experience teaches us that, when we return to the same place an hour
after, the shadow is displaced, for it does not vanish suddenly, but
gradually, little by little, so as never to be at rest. If we look at the
stars, they seem to be as small as money-pieces; but mathematical proofs
convince us that they are larger than the earth. These and other things
are judged by the senses, but rejected by reason as false. I abandoned
the senses, therefore, having seen all my confidence in their truth
shaken.
"'Perhaps,' said I, 'there is no assurance but in the notions of reason,
that is to say, first principles, as that ten is more than three; the
same thing cannot have been created and yet have existed from all
eternity; to exist and not to exist at the same time is impossible.'
Fallibility of reason."Upon this the senses replied, 'What assurance have you that your
confidence in reason is not of the same nature as your confidence in us?
When you relied on us, reason stepped in and gave us the lie; had not
reason been there, you would have continued to rely on us. Well, may
there not exist some other judge superior to reason, who, if he appeared,
would refute the judgments of reason in the same way that reason refuted
us? The non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-existence.'
The nature of dreams."I strove in vain to answer the objection, and my difficulties increased
when I came to reflect on sleep. I said to myself, 'During sleep, you
give to visions a reality and consistence, and you have no suspicion of
their untruth. On awakening, you are made aware that they were nothing
but visions. What assurance have you that all you feel and know when you
are awake does actually exist? It is all true as respects your condition
at that moment; but it is nevertheless possible [52] that another condition
should present itself which should be to your awakened state that which
to your awakened state is now to you sleep; so that, as respects this
higher condition, your waking is but sleep.'"
It would not be possible to find in any European work a clearer statement
of the scepticism to which philosophy leads than what is thus given by
this Arabian. Indeed, it is not possible to put the argument in a more
effective way. His perspicuity is in singular contrast with the obscurity
of many metaphysical writers.
Intellectual despair.
"Reflecting on my situation, I found myself bound to this world by a
thousand ties, temptations assailing me on all sides. I then examined my
actions. The best were those relating to instruction and education, and
even there I saw myself given up to unimportant sciences, all useless in
another world. Reflecting on the aim of my teaching, I found it was not
pure in the sight of the Lord. I saw that all my efforts were directed
toward the acquisition of glory to myself. Having, therefore, distributed
my wealth, I left Bagdad and retired into Syria, where I remained two
years in solitary struggle with my soul, combating my passions, and
exercising myself, in the purification of my heart and in preparation for
the other world."
This is a very beautiful picture of the mental struggles and the actions
of a truthful and earnest man. In all this the Christian philosopher can
sympathize with the devout Mohammedan. After all, they are not very far
apart. Algazzali is not the only one to whom such thoughts have occurred,
but he has found words to tell his experience better than any other man.
And what is the conclusion at which he arrives?
Algazzali's ages of man.
The life of man, he says,
is marked by three stages: "the first, or infantile stage, is that of
pure sensation; the second, which begins at the age of seven, is that of
understanding; the third is that of reason, by means of which the
intellect perceives the necessary, the possible, the absolute, and all
those higher objects which transcend the understanding. But after this
there is a fourth stage, when another eye is opened, by which man
perceives things hidden from others—perceives all that will
be—perceives the [53] things that escape the perceptions of reason, as the
objects of reason escape the understanding, and as the objects of the
understanding escape the sensitive faculty. This is prophetism."
Algazzali thus finds a philosophical basis for the rule of life, and
reconciles religion and philosophy.
And now I have to turn from Arabian civilized life, its science, its
philosophy, to another, a repulsive state of things. With reluctance I
come back to the Italian system, defiling the holy name of religion with
its intrigues, its bloodshed, its oppression of human thought, its hatred
of intellectual advancement.
Renewal of the operation of Mohammedan influences.
Especially I have now to direct attention to
two countries, the scenes of important events—countries in which the
Mohammedan influences began to take effect and to press upon Rome. These
are the South of France and Sicily.
Innocent III. had been elected pope at the early age of thirty-seven
years, A.D. 1198. The papal power had reached its culminating point. The
weapons of the Church had attained their utmost force. In Italy, in
Germany, in France and England, interdicts and excommunications
vindicated the pontifical authority, as in the cases of the Duke of
Ravenna, the Emperor Otho, Philip Augustus of France, King John of
England.
Interference of Innocent III. in France.
In each of these cases it was not for the sake of sustaining
great moral principles or the rights of humanity that the thunder was
launched—it was in behalf of temporary political interests; interests
that, in Germany, were sustained at the cost of a long war, and cemented
by assassination; in France, strengthened by the well-tried device of an
intervention in a matrimonial broil—the domestic quarrel of the king and
queen about Agnes of Meran. "Ah! happy Saladin!" said the insulted
Philip, when his kingdom was put under interdict; "he has no pope above
him. I too will turn Mohammedan."
In Spain and Portugal.So, likewise, in Spain, Innocent interfered in the matrimonial life of
the King of Leon. The remorseless venality of the papal government was
felt in every direction. Portugal had already been advanced to the
dignity of a kingdom on payment of an [54] annual tribute to Rome. The King
of Aragon held his kingdom as feudatory to the pope.
In England; denounces Magna Charta.In England, Innocent's interference assumed a different aspect. He
attempted to assert his control over the Church in spite of the king, and
put the nation under interdict because John would not permit Stephen
Langton to be Archbishop of Canterbury. It was utterly impossible that
affairs could go on with such an empire within an empire. For his
contumacy, John was excommunicated; but, base as he was, he defied his
punishment for four years. Hereupon his subjects were released from their
allegiance, and his kingdom offered to anyone who would conquer it. In
his extremity, the King of England is said to have sent a messenger to
Spain, offering to become a Mohammedan. The religious sentiment was then
no higher in him than it was, under a like provocation, in the King of
France, whose thoughts turned in the same direction. But, pressed
irresistibly by Innocent, John was compelled to surrender his realm,
agreeing to pay to the pope, in addition to Peter's pence, 1000 marks a
year as a token of vassalage. When the prelates whom he had refused or
exiled returned, he was compelled to receive them on his
knees—humiliations which aroused the indignation of the stout English
barons, and gave strength to those movements which ended in extorting
Magna Charta. Never, however, was Innocent more mistaken than in the
character of Stephen Langton. John had, a second time, formally
surrendered his realm to the pope, and done homage to the legate for it;
but Stephen Langton was the first—at a meeting of the chiefs of the
revolt against the king, held in London, August 25th, 1213—to suggest
that they should demand a renewal of the charter of Henry I. From this
suggestion Magna Charta originated. Among the miracles of the age, he was
the greatest miracle of all; his patriotism was stronger than his
profession. The wrath of the pontiff knew no bounds when he learned that
the Great Charter had been conceded. In his bull, he denounced it as base
and ignominious; he anathematized the king if he observed it; he declared
it null and void. It was not the policy of the Roman court to permit [55] so
much as the beginnings of such freedom. The appointment of Simon Langton
to the archbishopric of York was annulled. One De Gray was substituted
for him. It illustrated the simony into which the papal government had
fallen, that De Gray had become, in these transactions, indebted to Rome
ten thousand pounds.
The drain of money from that country.
In fact, through the operation of the Crusades, all
Europe was tributory to the pope. He had his fiscal agents in every
metropolis; his travelling ones wandering in all directions, in every
country, raising revenue by the sale of dispensations for all kinds of
offences, real and fictitious—money for the sale of appointments, high
and low—a steady drain of money from every realm. Fifty years after the
time of which we are speaking, Robert Grostête, the Bishop of Lincoln and
friend of Roger Bacon, caused to be ascertained the amount received by
foreign ecclesiastics in England. He found it to be thrice the income of
the king himself. This was on the occasion of Innocent IV. demanding
provision to be made for three hundred additional Italian clergy by the
Church of England, and that one of his nephews—a mere boy—should have a
stall in Lincoln cathedral.
Goading of Europe into a new crusade. While thus Innocent III. was interfering and intriguing with every court,
and laying every people under tribute, he did not for a moment permit his
attention to be diverted from the Crusades, the singular advantages of
which to the papacy had now been fully discovered. They had given to the
pope a suzerainty in Europe, the control of its military as well as its
monetary resources. Not that a man like Innocent could permit himself to
be deluded by any hopes of eventual success. The crusades must inevitably
prove, so far as their avowed object was concerned, a failure. The
Christian inhabitants of Palestine were degraded and demoralized beyond
description. Their ranks were thinned by apostasy to Mohammedanism. In
Europe, not only the laity begun to discover that the money provided for
the wars in the Holy Land was diverted from its purpose, and in some
inexplicable manner, found its way into Italy—even the clergy could not
conceal their suspicions that the proclamation of a crusade was [56] merely
the preparation for a swindle. Nevertheless, Innocent pressed forward his
schemes, goading on Christendom by upbraiding it with the taunts of the
Saracens. "Where," they say, "is your God, who can not deliver you out of
our hands? Behold! we have defiled your sanctuaries; we have stretched
forth our arm; we have taken at the first assault, we hold in despite of
you, those your desirable places, where your superstition had its
beginning. Where is your God? Let him arise and protect you and himself."
"If thou be the Son of God, save thyself if thou canst; redeem the land
of thy birth from our hands. Restore thy cross, that we have taken, to
the worshippers of the Cross." With great difficulty, however, Innocent
succeeded in preparing the fourth crusade, A.D. 1202. The Venetians
consented to furnish a fleet of transports. But the expedition was
quickly diverted from its true purpose; the Venetians employing the
Crusaders for the capture of Zara from the King of Hungary.
The crusade is used for the seizure of Constantinople.
Still worse, and shameful to be said—partly from the lust of plunder, and partly
through ecclesiastical machinations—it again turned aside for an attack
upon Constantinople, and took that city by storm A.D. 1204, thereby
establishing Latin Christianity in the Eastern metropolis, but, alas!
with bloodshed, rape, and fire. On the night of the assault more houses
were burned than could be found in any three of the largest cities in
France.
Sack of that city by the Catholics.
Even Christian historians compare with shame the storming of
Constantinople by the Catholics with the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin.
Pope Innocent himself was compelled to protest against enormities that
had outrun his intentions. He says: "They practised fornications,
incests, adulteries in the sight of men. They abandoned matrons and
virgins, consecrated to God, to the lewdness of grooms. They lifted their
hands against the treasures of the churches—what is more heinous, the
very consecrated vessels—tearing the tablets of silver from the very
altars, breaking in pieces the most sacred things, carrying off crosses
and relics." In St. Sophia, the silver was stripped from the pulpit; an
exquisite and highly-prized table of oblation was broken in pieces; the
sacred chalices were [57] turned into drinking-cups; the gold fringe was
ripped off the veil of the sanctuary. Asses and horses were led into the
churches to carry off the spoil. A prostitute mounted the patriarch's
throne, and sang, with indecent gestures, a ribald song. The tombs of the
emperors were rifled; and the Byzantines saw, at once with amazement and
anguish, the corpse of Justinian—which even decay and putrefaction had
for six centuries spared in his tomb—exposed to the violation of a mob.
It had been understood among those who instigated these atrocious
proceedings that the relics were to be brought into a common stock and
equitably divided among the conquerors! but each ecclesiastic seized and
secreted whatever he could. The idolatrous state of the Eastern Church is
illustrated by some of these relics.
The relics found there,
Thus the Abbot Martin obtained for
his monastery in Alsace the following inestimable articles: 1. A spot of
the blood of our Saviour; 2. A piece of the true cross; 3. The arm of the
Apostle James; 4. Part of the skeleton of John the Baptist; 5.—I
hesitate to write such blasphemy—"A bottle of the milk of the Mother of
God!" and works of art destroyed.
In contrast with the treasures thus acquired may be set relics of a
very different kind, the remains of ancient art which they destroyed: 1.
The bronze charioteers from the Hippodrome; 2. The she-wolf suckling
Romulus and Remus; 3. A group of a Sphinx, river-horse, and crocodile; 4.
An eagle tearing a serpent; 5. An ass and his driver, originally cast by
Augustus in memory of the victory of Actium; 6. Bellerophon and Pegasus;
7. A bronze obelisk; 8. Paris presenting the apple to Venus; 9. An
exquisite statute of Helen; 10. The Hercules of Lysippus; 11. A Juno,
formerly taken from the temple at Samos. The bronzes were melted into
coin, and thousands of manuscripts and parchments were burned. From that
time the works of many ancient authors disappeared altogether.
The pope and the doge divide the spoil. With well-dissembled regret, Innocent took the new order of things in the
city of Constantinople under his protection. The bishop of Rome at last
appointed the Bishop of Constantinople. The acknowledgment of papal
supremacy was complete. Rome and Venice [58] divided between them the
ill-gotten gains of their undertaking. If anything had been wanting to
open the eyes of Europe, surely what had thus occurred should have been
enough. The pope and the doge—the trader in human credulity and the
trader of the Adriatic—had shared the spoils of a crusade meant by
religious men for the relief of the Holy Land.
Works of art carried to Venice.
The bronze horses, once
brought by Augustus from Alexandria, after his victory over Antony and
transferred from Rome to Constantinople by its founder, were set before
the Church of St Mark. They were the outward and visible sign of a less
obvious event that was taking place. For to Venice was brought a residue
of the literary treasures that had escaped the fire and the destroyer;
and while her comrades in the outrage were satisfied, in their ignorance,
with fictitious relics, she took possession of the poor remnant of the
glorious works of art, of letters, and of science. Through these was
hastened the intellectual progress of the West.
The punishment of Constantinople.So fell Constantinople, and fell by the parricidal hands of Christians.
The days of retribution for the curse she had inflicted on Western
civilization were now approaching. In these events she received a first
instalment of her punishment. Three hundred years previously, the
historian Luitprand, who was sent by the Emperor Otho I. to the court of
Nicephorus Phocas, says of her, speaking as an eye-witness, "That city,
once so wealthy, so flourishing, is now famished, lying, perjured,
deceitful, rapacious, greedy, niggardly, vainglorious;" and since
Luitprand's time she had been pursuing a downward career. It might have
been expected that the concentration of all the literary and scientific
treasures of the Roman empire in Constantinople would have given rise to
great mental vigour—that to Europe she would have been a brilliant focus
of light.
The literary worthlessness of that city.
But when the works on jurisprudence by Tribonian, under
Justinian, have been mentioned, what is there that remains? There is
Stephanus, the grammarian, who wrote a dictionary, and Procopius, the
historian, who was secretary to Belisarius in his campaigns. There is
then a long interval [59] almost without a literary name, to Theophylact
Simocatta, and to the Ladder of Paradise of John Climacus. The mental
excitement of the iconoclastic dispute presents us with John of Damascus;
and the ninth century, the Myriobiblion and Nomacanon of Photius. Then
follows Constantine Porphyrogenitus, vainly and voluminously composing;
and Basil II. doubtless truly expresses the opinion of the time, as he
certainly does the verdict of posterity respecting the works of his
country, when he says that learning is useless and unprofitable lumber.
The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, and the history of Byzantine affairs by
Nicephorous Bryennius, hardly redeem their age. This barrenness and
worthlessness was the effect of the system introduced by Constantine the
Great. The long line of emperors had been consistent in one policy—the
repression or expulsion of philosophy; and yet it is the uniform
testimony of those ages that the Eastern convents were full of secret
Platonism—that in stealth, the doctrines of Plato were treasured up in
the cells of Asiatic monks. The Byzantines had possessed in art and
letters all the best models in the world, yet in a thousand years they
never produced one original. Millions of Greeks never advanced one step
in philosophy or science—never made a single practical discovery,
composed no poem, no tragedy worth perusal. The spirit of their
superficial literature—if literature it can be called—is well shadowed
forth in the story of the patriarch Photius, who composed at Bagdad, at a
distance from his library, an analysis of 280 works he had formerly read.
The absurdity of its intellectual pursuits.
The final age of the city was signalized by the Baarlamite controversy
respecting the mysterious light of Mount Thabor—the possibility of
producing a beatific vision and of demonstrating, by an unceasing
inspection of the navel for days and nights together, the existence of
two eternal principles, a visible and an invisible God!
Cause of all this.What was it that produced this barrenness, this intellectual degradation
in Constantinople? The tyranny of Theology over Thought.
But with the capture of Constantinople by the Latins other important
events were occurring. Everywhere [60] an intolerance of papal power was
engendering.
Heresy follows literature.
The monasteries became infected, and even from the holy lips
of monks words of ominous import might be heard. In the South of France
the intellectual insurrection first took form. There the influence of the
Mohammedans and Jews beyond the Pyrenees began to manifest itself.
Spread of gay literature from Spain.
The songs of gallantry; tensons, or poetical contests of minstrels; satires
of gay defiance; rivalry in praise of the ladies; lays, serenades,
pastourelles, redondes, such as had already drawn forth the condemnation
of the sedate Mussulmen of Cordova, had gradually spread through Spain
and found a congenial welcome in France.
The Troubadours and Trouvères.
The Troubadours were singing in
the langue d'Oc in the south, and the Trouvères in the langue d'Oil in
the north. Thence the merry epidemic spread to Sicily and Italy. Men felt
that a relief from the grim ecclesiastic was coming. Kings, dukes,
counts, knights, prided themselves on their gentle prowess. The humbler
minstrels found patronage among ladies and at courts: sly satires against
the priests, and amorous ditties, secured them a welcome among the
populace. When the poet was deficient in voice, a jongleur went with him
to sing; and often there was added the pleasant accompaniment of a
musical instrument. The Provençal or langue d'Oc was thus widely
diffused; it served the purposes of those unacquainted with Latin, and
gave the Italians a model for thought and versification, to Europe the
germs of many of its future melodies. While the young were singing, the
old were thinking; while the gay were carried away with romance, the
grave were falling into heresy. Commencing resistance of Rome.
But, true to her instincts and
traditions, the Church had shown her determination to deal rigorously
with all such movements. Already, A.D. 1134, Peter de Brueys had been
burned in Languedoc for denying infant baptism, the worship of the cross,
and transubstantiation. Already Henry the Deacon, the disciple of Peter,
had been disposed of by St. Bernard. Already the valleys of Piedmont were
full of Waldenses. Already the Poor Men of Lyons were proclaiming the
portentous doctrine that the sanctity of a priest lay not in his office,
but in [61] the manner of his life. They denounced the wealth of the Church,
and the intermingling of bishops in bloodshed and war; they denied
transubstantiation, invocation of saints, purgatory, and especially
directed their hatred against the sale of indulgences for sin. The rich
cities of Languedoc were full of misbelievers. They were given up to
poetry, music, dancing. Their people, numbers of whom had been in the
Crusades or in Spain, had seen the Saracens. Admiration had taken the
place of detestation. Amid shouts of laughter, the Troubadours went
through the land, wagging their heads, and slyly winking their eyes, and
singing derisive songs about the amours of the priests, and amply earning
denunciations as lewd blasphemers and atheists.
Innocent III. alarmed at the spread of heresy.
Here was a state of things demanding the attention
of Innocent. The methods he took for its
correction have handed his name down to the maledictions of posterity. He
despatched a missive to the Count of Toulouse—who already lay under
excommunication for alleged intermeddling with the rights of the
clergy—charging him with harbouring heretics and giving offices of
emolument to Jews. The count was a man of gay life, having, in emulation
of some of his neighbours across the Pyrenees, not fewer than three
wives. His offences of that kind were, however, eclipsed by those with
which he was now formally charged. It chanced that, in the ensuing
disputes, the pope's legate was murdered. There is no reason to believe
that Raymond was concerned in the crime.
He proclaims a crusade against the Count of Toulouse,
But the indignant pope held him
responsible; instantly ordered to be published in all directions his
excommunication, and called upon Western Christendom to engage in a
crusade against him, offering, to him whoever chose to take them, the
wealth and possessions of the offender. So thoroughly was he seconded by
the preaching of the monks, that half a million of men, it is affirmed,
took up arms.
and disciplines him.For the count there remained nothing but to submit. He surrendered up his
strong places, was compelled to acknowledge the crimes alleged against
him, and the justice of his punishment. He swore that he would no longer
protect heretics. Stripped naked [62] to his middle, with a rope round his
neck, he was led to the altar, and there scourged. But the immense army
that had assembled was not to be satisfied by these inflictions on an
individual, though the pope might be. They had come for blood and
plunder, and blood and plunder they must have. Then followed such scenes
of horror as the sun had never looked on before. The army was officered
by Roman and French prelates; bishops were its generals, an archdeacon
its engineer.
Atrocities of the Crusaders in the South of France.
It was the Abbot Arnold, the legate of the pope, who, at
the capture of Beziers, was inquired of by a soldier, more merciful or
more weary of murder than himself, how he should distinguish and save the
Catholic from the heretic. "Kill them all," he exclaimed; "God will know
his own." At the Church of St. Mary Magdalene 7000 persons were
massacred, the infuriated Crusaders being excited to madness by the
wicked assertion that these wretches had been guilty of the blasphemy of
saying, in their merriment, "S. Mariam Magdalenam fuisse concubinam
Christi." It was of no use for them to protest their innocence. In the
town twenty thousand were slaughtered, and the place then fired, to be
left a monument of papal vengeance. At the massacre of Lavaur 400 people
were burned in one pile; it is remarked that "they made a wonderful
blaze, and went to burn everlastingly in hell." Language has no powers to
express the atrocities that took place at the capture of the different
towns. Ecclesiastical vengeance rioted in luxury. The soil was steeped in
the blood of men—the air polluted by their burning.
Institution of the Inquisition.
From the reek of murdered women, mutilated children, and ruined cities, the Inquisition,
that infernal institution, arose. Its projectors intended it not only to
put an end to public teaching, but even to private thought. In the midst
of these awful events, Innocent was called to another tribunal to render
his account. He died A.D. 1216.
Establishment of mendicant orders.It was during the pontificate of this great criminal that the mendicant
orders were established. The course of ages had brought an
unintelligibility into public worship. The old dialects had become
obsolete; new languages were forming. Among [63] those classes, daily
increasing in number, whose minds were awakening, an earnest desire for
instruction was arising. Multitudes were crowding to hear philosophical
discourses in the universities, and heresy was spreading very fast. But
it was far from being confined to the intelligent. The lower orders
furnished heretics and fanatics too. To antagonize the labours of these
zealots—who, if they had been permitted to go on unchecked, would
quickly have disseminated their doctrines through all classes of
society—the Dominican and Franciscan orders were founded. They were well
adapted for their duty. It was their business to move among the people,
preaching to them, in their own tongue, wherever an audience could be
collected. The scandal under which the Church was labouring because of
her wealth could not apply to these persons who lived by begging alms.
Their function was not to secure their own salvation, but that of other
men.
St. Dominic.St. Dominic was born A.D. 1170. His birth and life were adorned with the
customary prodigies. Miracles and wonders were necessary for anything to
make a sensation in the West. His was an immaculate conception, he was
free from original sin. He was regarded as the adopted son of the Virgin;
some were even disposed to assign him a higher dignity than that. He
began his operations in Languedoc; but, as the prospect opened out before
him, he removed from that unpromising region to Rome, the necessary
centre of all such undertakings as his. Here he perfected his
organization; instituted his friars, nuns, and tertiaries; and
consolidated his pretensions by the working of many miracles. He
exorcised three matrons, from whom Satan issued forth under the form of a
great black cat, which ran up a bell-rope and vanished. A beautiful nun
resolved to leave her convent. Happening to blow her nose, it dropped off
into her handkerchief; but, at the fervent prayer of St. Dominic, it was
replaced, and in gratitude, tempered by fear, she remained. St. Dominic
could also raise the dead. Nevertheless, he died A.D. 1221, having
worthily obtained the title of the burner and slayer of heretics. To him
has been attributed the glory or the crime of being the inventor of "the
Holy Inquisition." In a very few years his order boasted [64] of nearly 500
monasteries, scattered over Europe, Asia, Africa.
St. Francis.St. Francis, the compeer of St. Dominic, was born A.D. 1182. His
followers delighted to point out, as it would seem not without
irreverence, a resemblance to the incidents that occurred at the birth of
our Lord. A prophetess foretold it; he was born in a stable; angels sung
forth peace and good-will in the air; one, under the form of Simeon, bore
him to baptism. In early life he saw visions and became ecstatic. His
father, Peter Bernardini, a respectable tradesman, endeavoured to
restrain his eccentricities, at first by persuasion, but eventually more
forcibly, appealing for assistance to the bishop, to prevent the young
enthusiast from squandering his means in alms to the poor. On that
functionary's gently remonstrating, and pointing out to Francis his
filial obligations, he stripped himself naked before the people,
exclaiming, "Peter Bernardini was my father; I have now but one Father,
he that is in heaven." At this affecting renunciation of all earthly
possessions and earthly ties, those present burst into tears, and the
good bishop threw his own mantle over him. When a man has come to this
pass, there is nothing he cannot accomplish.
Authorization of these orders.It is related that, when application was first made to Innocent to
authorize the order, he refused; but, very soon recognizing the
advantages that would accrue, he gave it his hearty patronage. So rapid
was the increase, that in A.D. 1219 it numbered not fewer than five
thousand brethren. It was founded on the principles of chastity, poverty,
obedience. They were to live on alms, but never to receive money. After a
life of devotion to the Church, St. Francis attained his reward, A.D.
1226. Two years previous to his death, by a miraculous intervention there
were impressed on his person marks answering to the wounds on our
Saviour. These were the celebrated stigmata. A black growth, like nails,
issued forth from the palms of his hands and his feet; a wound from which
blood and water distilled opened in his side. It is not to be wondered at
that these prodigies met with general belief. This was the generation
which received as inestimable relics, [65] through Andrew of Hungary, the
skulls of St. Stephen and St. Margaret, the hands of St. Bartholomew and
St. Thomas, a slip of the rod of Aaron, and one of the water-pots of the
marriage at Cana in Galilee.
Influence derived from these orders.The papal government quickly found the prodigious advantage arising from
the institution of these mendicant orders. Vowed to poverty, living on
alms, hosts of friars, begging and barefoot, pervaded all Europe, coming
in contact, under the most favourable circumstances, with the lowest
grades of society. They lived and moved among the populace, and yet were
held sacred. The accusations of dissipation and luxury so forcibly urged
against the regular clergy were altogether inapplicable to these
rope-bound, starving fanatics. Through them the Italian government had
possession of the ear of Europe. The pomp of worship in an unknown
tongue, the gorgeous solemnities of the Church, were far more than
compensated by the preaching of these missionaries, who held forth in the
vernacular wherever an audience could be had. Among the early ones, some
had been accustomed to a wandering life. Brother Pacificus, a disciple of
St. Francis, had been a celebrated Trouvère. In truth, they not only
warded off the present pressing danger, but through them the Church
retained her hold on the labouring classes for several subsequent
centuries. The pope might truly boast that the Poor Men of the Church
were more than a match for the Poor Men of Lyons. Their influence began
to diminish only when they abandoned their essential principles, joined
in the common race for plunder, and became immensely rich.
Introduction of auricular confession.Not only did Innocent III. thus provide himself with an ecclesiastical
militia suited to meet the obviously impending insurrection, he increased
his power greatly but insidiously by the formal introduction of auricular
confession. It was by the fourth Lateran Council that the necessity of
auricular confession was first formally established. Its aim was that no
heretic should escape, and that the absent priest should be paramount
even in the domestic circle. In none but a most degraded and
superstitious society can such an infamous institution be tolerated. It
invades the [66] sacred privacy of life—makes a man's wife, children, and
servants his spies and accusers. When any religious system stands in need
of such a social immorality, we may be sure that it is irrecoverably
diseased, and hastening to its end.
Development of casuistry.Auricular confession led to an increasing necessity for casuistry, though
that science was not fully developed until the time of the Jesuits, when
it gave rise to an extensive literature, with a lax system and a false
morality, guiding the penitent rather with a view to his usefulness to
the Church than to his own reformation, and not hesitating at singular
indecencies in its portion having reference to married life.
Attitude of Innocent III.Great historical events often find illustrations in representative men.
Such is the case in the epoch we are now considering. On one side stands
Innocent, true to the instincts of his party, interfering with all the
European nations; launching forth his interdicts and excommunications;
steeped in the blood of French heretics; hesitating at no atrocity, even
the outrage and murder of women and children, the ruin of flourishing
cities, to compass his plans; in all directions, under a thousand
pretences, draining Europe of its money; calling to his aid hosts of
begging friars; putting forth imposture miracles; organizing the
Inquisition, and invading the privacy of life by the contrivance of
auricular confession.
Attitude of Frederick II.On the other side stands Frederick II., the Emperor of Germany. His early
life, as has been already mentioned, was spent in Sicily, in familiar
intercourse with Jews and Arabs, and Sicily to the last was the favoured
portion of his dominions. To his many other accomplishments he added the
speaking of Arabic as fluently as a Saracen. He delighted in the society
of Mohammedan ladies, who thronged his court. His enemies asserted that
his chastity was not improved by his associations with these miscreant
beauties. The Jewish and Mohammedan physicians and philosophers taught
him to sneer at the pretensions of the Church.
His Mohammedan tendencies.
From such ridicule it is
but a short step to the shaking off of authority. At this time the
Spanish Mohammedans had become widely infected with irreligion; their
greatest philosophers were infidel in [67] their own infidelity. The two sons
of Averroes of Cordova are said to have been residents at Frederick's
court. Their father was one of the ablest men their nation ever produced:
an experienced astronomer, he had translated the Almagest, and, it is
affirmed, was the first who actually saw a transit of Mercury across the
sun; a voluminous commentator on the works of Plato and Aristotle, but a
disbeliever in all revelation. Even of Mohammedanism he said, alluding to
the prohibition which the Prophet had enjoined on the use of the flesh of
swine, "That form of religion is destitute of every thing that can
commend it to the approval of any understanding, unless it be that of a
hog."
He cultivates light literature and heresy.
In the Sicilian court, surrounded by such profane influences, the
character of the young emperor was formed. Italian poetry, destined for
such a brilliant future, here first found a voice in the sweet Sicilian
dialect. The emperor and his chancellor were cultivators of the gay
science, and in the composition of sonnets were rivals. A love of amatory
poetry had spread from the South of France.
With a view to the recovery of the Holy Land, Honorius III. had made
Frederick marry Yolinda de Lusignan, the heiress of the kingdom of
Jerusalem. It was not, therefore, to be wondered at that Frederick's
frivolities soon drew upon him the indignation of the gloomy Pope Gregory IX.,
the very first act of whose pontificate was to summon a new crusade.
Refuses to go on a crusade, and then goes.
To the exhortations and commands of the aged pope the emperor lent a most
reluctant ear, postponing, from time to time, the period of his
departure, and dabbling in doubtful negotiations, through his Mohammedan
friends, with the Sultan of Egypt. He embarked at last, but in three days
returned. The octogenarian pope was not to be trifled with, and
pronounced his excommunication. Frederick treated it with ostensible
contempt, but appealed to Christendom, accusing Rome of avaricious
intentions.
Presumes to rebuke the pontifical government.
Her officials, he said, were travelling in all directions,
not to preach the Word of God, but to extort money. "The primitive
Church, founded on poverty and simplicity, brought forth numberless
saints. The Romans are now rolling in [68] wealth. What wonder that the walls
of the Church are undermined to the base, and threaten utter ruin." For
saying this he underwent a more tremendous excommunication; but his
partisans in Rome, raising an insurrection, expelled the pope. And now
Frederick set sail, of his own accord, on his crusading expedition. On
reaching the Holy Land, he was received with joy by the knights and
pilgrims; but the clergy held aloof from him as an excommunicated person.
The pontiff had despatched a swift-sailing ship to forbid their holding
intercourse with him.
His friendship with the sultan,
His private negotiations with the Sultan of Egypt
now matured. The Christian camp was thronged with infidel delegates: some
came to discuss philosophical questions, some were the bearers of
presents. Elephants and a bevy of dancing-girls were courteously sent by
the sultan to his friend, who, it is said, was not insensible to the
witcheries of these Oriental beauties. He wore a Saracen dress. In his
privacy he did not hesitate to say, "I came not here to deliver the Holy
City, but to maintain my estimation among the Franks." To the sultan he
appealed, "Out of your goodness, surrender to me Jerusalem as it is, that
I may be able to lift up my head among the kings of Christendom."
who gives up Jerusalem to him.
Accordingly, the city was surrendered to him. The object of his
expedition was accomplished. But the pope was not to be deceived by such
collusions. He repudiated the transactions altogether, and actually took
measures to lay Jerusalem and our Saviour's sepulchre under interdict,
and this in the face of the Mohammedans.
The pope denounces him.
While the emperor proclaimed his
successes to Europe, the pope denounced them as coming from the union of
Christ and Belial; alleging four accusations against Frederick: 1. That
he had given the sword which he had received from the altar of St. Peter
for the defence of the faith, as a present to the Sultan of Babylon; 2.
That he had permitted the preaching of the Koran in the holy Temple
itself; 3. That he had excluded the Christians of Antioch from his
treaty; 4. That he had bound himself, if a Christian army should attempt
to cleanse the Temple and city from Mohammedan defilements, to join the
Saracens.
Frederick crowned himself at Jerusalem, unable to [69] find any ecclesiastic
who dared to perform the ceremony, and departed from the Holy Land. It
was time, for Rome was intriguing against him at home, a false report of
his death having been industriously circulated. He forthwith prepared to
enter on his conflict with the pontiff.
Frederick establishes Saracen posts in Italy.
His Saracen colonies at Nocera
and Luceria, in Italy, could supply him with 30,000 Mussulman soldiers,
with whom it was impossible for his enemies to tamper. He managed to draw
over the general sentiment of Europe to his side, and publicly offered to
convict the pope himself of negotiations with the infidels; but his
antagonist, conveniently impressed with a sudden horror of shedding
blood, gave way, and peace between the parties was made. It lasted nearly
nine years.
His political institutions.
In this period, the intellectual greatness of Frederick, and the
tendencies of the influences by which he was enveloped, were strikingly
manifested. In advance of his age, he devoted himself to the political
improvement of Sicily. He instituted representative parliaments; enacted
a system of wise laws; asserted the principle of equal rights and equal
burdens, and the supremacy of the law over all, even the nobles and the
Church. He provided for the toleration of all professions, Jewish and
Mohammedan, as well as Christian; emancipated all the serfs of his
domains; instituted cheap justice for the poor; forbade private war;
regulated commerce—prophetically laying down some of those great
principles, which only in our own time have been finally received as
true; established markets and fairs; collected large libraries; caused to
be translated such works as those of Aristotle and Ptolemy; built
menageries for natural history; founded in Naples a great university;
patronized the medical college at Salernum; made provisions for the
education of promising but indigent youths. All over the land splendid
architectural triumphs were created. Under him the Italian language first
rose above a patois. Sculpture, painting, and music were patronized. His
chancellor is said to have been the author of the oldest sonnet.
In the eye of Rome all this was an abomination. Were human laws to take
the precedence of the law of God? Were the clergy to be degraded to a
level with the laity? [70] Were the Jew and the Mohammedan to be permitted their infamous rites? Was
this new-born product of the insolence of human intellect—this so-called
science—to be brought into competition with theology, the
heaven-descended?
They are denounced.
Frederick and his parliaments, his laws and
universities, his libraries, his statues, his pictures and sonnets, were
denounced. Through all, the ever-watchful eye of the Church discerned the
Jew and the Saracen, and held them up to the abhorrence of Europe. But
Gregory was not unwilling to show what could be done by himself in the
same direction. He caused a compilation of the Decretals to be issued,
intrusting the work to one Raymond de Pennaforte, who had attained
celebrity as a literary opponent of the Saracens. It is amusing to remark
that even this simple work of labour could not be promulgated without the
customary embellishments. It was given out that an angel watched over
Pennaforte's shoulder all the time he was writing.
Outbreak of his quarrel with the pope,Meantime an unceasing vigilance was maintained against the dangerous
results that would necessarily ensue from Frederick's movements. In Rome,
many heretics were burned; many condemned to imprisonment for life. The
quarrel between the pope and the emperor was resumed; the latter being
once more excommunicated, and his body delivered over to Satan for the
good of his soul. Again Frederick appealed to all the sovereigns of
Christendom. He denounced the pontiff as an unworthy vicar of Christ,
"who sits in his court like a merchant, weighing out dispensations for
gold—himself writing and signing the bulls, perhaps counting the money.
He has but one cause of enmity against me, that I refused to marry to his
niece my natural son Enzio, now King of Sardinia." "In the midst of the
Church sits a frantic prophet, a man of falsehood, a polluted priest." To
this Gregory replied.
who rouses Christendom against him.
The tenor of his answer may be gathered from its
commencement: "Out of the sea a beast is arisen, whose name is written
all over 'Blasphemy.'" "He falsely asserts that I am enraged at his
refusing his consent to the marriage of my niece with his natural son. He
lies more impudently when he says that [71] I have pledged my faith to the
Lombards." "In truth, this pestilent king maintains, to use his own
words, that the world has been deceived by three impostors—Jesus Christ,
Moses, and Mohammed; that of these two died in honour, and the third was
hanged on a tree. Even now, he has asserted, distinctly and loudly, that
those are fools who aver that God, the Omnipotent Creator of the world,
was born of a woman." This was in allusion to the celebrated and
mysterious book, "De Tribus Impostoribus," in the authorship of which
Frederick was accused of having been concerned.
The pontiff had touched the right chord. The begging friars, in all
directions, added to the accusations. "He has spoken of the Host as a
mummery; he has asked how many gods might be made out of a corn-field; he
has affirmed that, if the princes of the world would stand by him, he
would easily make for mankind a better faith and a better rule of life;
he has laid down the infidel maxim that 'God expects not a man to believe
anything that cannot be demonstrated by reason.'" The opinion of
Christendom rose against Frederick; its sentiment of piety was shocked.
The pontiff proceeded to depose him, and offered his crown to Robert of
France.
Frederick uses his Saracen troops.
But the Mussulman troops of the emperor were too much for the
begging friars of the pope. His Saracens were marching across Italy in
all directions. The pontiff himself would have inevitably fallen into the
hands of his mortal enemy had he not found a deliverance in death, A.D.
1241. Frederick had declared that he would not respect his sacred person,
but, if victorious, would teach him the absolute supremacy of the
temporal power. It was plain that he had no intention of respecting a
religion which he had not hesitated to denounce as "a mere absurdity."
Whatever may have been the intention of Innocent IV.—who, after the
short pontificate of Celestine IV. and an interval, succeeded—he was
borne into the same policy by the irresistible force of circumstances.
The deadly quarrel with the emperor was renewed. To escape his wrath,
Innocent fled to France, and there in safety called the Council of Lyons.
In a sermon, he renewed all the [72] old accusations—the heresy and
sacrilege—the peopling of Italian cities with Saracens, for the purpose
of overturning the Vicar of Christ with those infidels—the friendship
with the Sultan of Egypt—the African courtesans—the perjuries and
blasphemies.
Excommunication of Frederick.
Then was proclaimed the sentence of excommunication and
deposition. The pope and the bishops inverted the torches they held in
their hands until they went out, uttering the malediction, "So may he be
extinguished." Again the emperor appealed to Europe, but this time in
vain. Europe would not forgive him his blasphemy. Misfortunes crowded
upon him; his friends forsook him; his favourite son, Enzio, was taken
prisoner; and he never smiled again after detecting his intimate, Pietro
de Vinea, whom he had raised from beggary, in promising the monks that he
would poison him. The day had been carried by a resort to all means
justifiable and unjustifiable, good and evil. For thirty years Frederick
had combated the Church and the Guelph party, but he sunk in the conflict
at last. When Innocent heard of the death of his foe, he might doubtless
well think that what he had once asserted had at last become true: "We
are no mere mortal man; we have the place of God upon earth."
The triumph at his death.
In his
address to the clergy of Sicily he exclaimed, "Let the heavens rejoice
and let the earth be glad; for the lightning and tempest wherewith God
Almighty has so long menaced your heads have been changed by the death of
this man into refreshing zephyrs and fertilizing dews." This is that
superhuman vengeance which hesitates not to strike the corpse of a man.
Rome never forgives him who has told her of her impostures face to face;
she never forgives him who has touched her goods.
Power of the Church at this moment.
The Saracenic influences had thus found an expression in the South of
France and in Sicily, involving many classes of society, from the Poor
Men of Lyons to the Emperor of Germany; but in both places they were
overcome by the admirable organization and unscrupulous vigour of the
Church. She handled her weapons with singular dexterity, and contrived to
extract victory out of humiliation and defeat. As always since the days
of Constantine, she had partisans [73] in every city, in every village, in
every family. And now it might have appeared that the blow she had thus
delivered was final, and that the world, in contentment, must submit to
her will. She had again succeeded in putting her iron heel on the neck of
knowledge, had invoked against it the hatred of Christendom, and reviled
it as the monstrous but legitimate issue of the detested Mohammedanism.
Vitality of Frederick's principles.But the fate of men is by no means an indication of the fate of
principles. The fall of the Emperor Frederick was not followed by the
destruction of the influences he represented. These not only survived
him, but were destined, in the end, to overcome the power which had
transiently overthrown them. We are now entering on the history of a
period which offers not only exterior opposition to the current
doctrines, but, what is more ominous, interior mutiny. Notwithstanding
the awful persecutions in the South of France—notwithstanding the
establishment of auricular confession as a detective means, and the
Inquisition as a weapon of punishment—notwithstanding the influence of
the French king, St. Louis, canonized by the grateful Church—heresy,
instead of being extirpated, extended itself among the laity, and even
spread among the ecclesiastical ranks.
St. Louis.
St. Louis, the representative of
the hierarchical party, gathers influence only from the circumstance of
his relations with the Church, of whose interests he was a fanatical
supporter. So far as the affairs of his people were concerned, he can
hardly be looked upon as anything better than a simpleton. His reliance
for checking the threatened spread of heresy was a resort to
violence—the faggot and the sword. In his opinion, "A man ought never to
dispute with a misbeliever except with his sword, which he ought to drive
into the heretic's entrails as far as he can." It was the signal glory of
his reign that he secured for France that inestimable relic, the crown of
thorns.
His superstition,
This peerless memento of our Saviour's passion he purchased in
Constantinople for an immense sum. But France was doubly and enviably
enriched; for the Abbey of St. Denys was in possession of another, known
to be equally authentic! Besides the crown, he also secured the sponge
that [74] was dipped in vinegar; the lance of the Roman soldier; also the
swaddling-clothes in which the Saviour had first lain in the manger; the
rod of Moses; and part of the skull of John the Baptist. These treasures
he deposited in the "Holy Chapel" of Paris.
and crusade. Under the papal auspices, St. Louis determined on a crusade; and nothing,
except what we have already mentioned, can better show his mental
imbecility than his disregard of all suitable arrangements for it. He
thought that, provided the troops could be made to lead a religious life,
all would go well; that the Lord would fight his own battles, and that no
provisions of a military or worldly kind were needed. In such a pious
reliance on the support of God, he reached Egypt with his expedition in
June, A.D. 1249. The ever-conspicuous valour of the French troops could
maintain itself in the battle-field, but not against pestilence and
famine.
Its total failure.
In March of the following year, as might have been foreseen, King
Louis was the prisoner of the Sultan, and was only spared the indignity
of being carried about as a public spectacle in the Mohammedan towns by a
ransom, at first fixed at a million of Byzantines, but by the merciful
Sultan voluntarily reduced one fifth. Still, for a time, Louis lingered
in the East, apparently stupefied by considering how God could in this
manner have abandoned a man who had come to his help. Never was there a
crusade with a more shameful end.
The Inquisition attempts to arrest the intellectual revolt.Notwithstanding the support of St. Louis in his own dominions, the
intellectual revolt spread in every direction, and that not only in
France, but throughout all Catholic Europe. In vain the Inquisition
exerted all its terrors—and what could be more terrible than its form of
procedure? It sat in secret; no witness, no advocate was present; the
accused was simply informed that he was charged with heresy, it was not
said by whom. He was made to swear that he would tell the truth as
regarded himself, and also respecting other persons, whether parents,
children, friends, strangers. If he resisted he was committed to a
solitary dungeon, dark and poisonous; his food was diminished; everything
was done to drive him into insanity. [75] Then the familiars of the Holy
Office, or others in its interests, were by degrees to work upon him to
extort confession as to himself or accusations against others. But this
fearful tribunal did not fail to draw upon itself the indignation of men.
Its victims, condemned for heresy, were perishing in all directions. The
usual apparatus of death, the stake and faggots, had become unsuited to
its wholesale and remorseless vengeance. The convicts were so numerous as
to require pens made of stakes and filled with straw.
Burnings of heretics.
It was thus that,
before the Archbishop of Rheims and seventeen other prelates, one hundred
and eighty-three heretics, together with their pastor, were burned alive.
Such outrages against humanity cannot be perpetrated without bringing in
the end retribution. In other countries the rising indignation was
exasperated by local causes; in England, for instance, by the continual
intrusion of Italian ecclesiastics into the richest benefices. Some of
them were mere boys; many were non-residents; some had not so much as
seen the country from which they drew their ample wealth. The Archbishop
of York was excommunicated, with torches and bells, because he would not
bestow the abundant revenues of his Church on persons from beyond the
Alps; but for all this "he was blessed by the people." The archbishopric
of Canterbury was held, A.D. 1241, by Boniface of Savoy, to whom had been
granted by the pope the first-fruits of all the benefices in his
province. His rapacity was boundless. From all the ecclesiastics and
ecclesiastical establishments under his control he extorted enormous
sums. Some, who, like the Dean of St. Paul's, resisted him, were
excommunicated; some, like the aged Sub-prior of St. Bartholomew's, were
knocked down by his own hand. Of a military turn—he often wore a cuirass
under his robes—he joined his brother, the Archbishop of Lyons, who was
besieging Turin, and wasted the revenues of his see in England in
intrigues and petty military enterprises against his enemies in Italy.
Mutiny arising in the Church.Not among the laity alone was there indignation against such a state of
things. Mutiny broke out in the ranks of the Church. It was not that
among the humbler classes the sentiment of piety [76] had become
diminished. The Shepherds and Flagellants.
The Shepherds, under the leadership of the Master of Hungary, passed by
tens of thousands through France to excite the clergy to arouse for the
rescue of good King Louis, in bondage among the Mussulmen. They asserted
that they were commissioned by the Virgin, and were fed miraculously by
the Master. Originating in Italy, the Flagellants also passed, two by
two, through every city, scourging themselves for thirty-three days in
memory of the years of our Lord. These dismal enthusiasts emulated each
other, and were rivals of the mendicant friars in their hatred of the
clergy.
The mendicant friars are affected.
The mendicants were beginning to justify that hesitation which
Innocent displayed when he was first importuned to authorize them. The
papacy had reaped from these orders much good; it was now to gather a
fearful evil. They had come to be learned men instead of ferocious
bigots. They were now, indeed, among the most cultivated men of their
times. They had taken possession of many of the seats of learning. In the
University of Paris, out of twelve chairs of theology, three only were
occupied by the regular clergy. The mendicant friars had entered into the
dangerous paths of heresy. They became involved in that fermenting leaven
that had come from Spain, and among them revolt broke out.
Rome prohibits the study of science.With an unerring instinct, Rome traced the insurrection to its true
source. We have only to look at the measures taken by the popes to
understand their opinion. Thus Innocent III., A.D. 1215, regulated, by
his legate, the schools of Paris, permitting the study of the Dialectics
of Aristotle, but forbidding his physical and metaphysical works and
their commentaries. These had come through an Arabic channel. A rescript
of Gregory XI., A.D. 1231, interdicts those on natural philosophy until
they had been purified by the theologians of the Church. These
regulations were confirmed by Clement IV. A.D. 1265.